"Raeesi first met Zarbibi in jail, after she had been sentenced to death, and encouraged her to write the diary printed here as “both as a kind of therapy as well as a way to explain her story to the public.” This unedited document captures the distress of a young woman who wanted the right to choose when and whom to marry, as well as the uncertainty of a young mother contemplating her daughter’s future. Though the arc of her narrative can be confusing at times, her writing demonstrates a talent for self-expression, one made all the more remarkable considering her limited learning and marginal cultural place. “While her crime is exceptional,” says Raeesi, “the intense feelings that seemed to have motivated it articulate the struggle of so many women in similar positions.”...
Later that night, when I told the family that I would refuse to go through with it, my mother lashed me so hard that my skin started crying for me. A pool of blood formed on my back, soon hardening into a dried cake...
I had only been in my husband’s home for a week when I had an excuse to return to my neighborhood for a party. When I went back to my family home, the first thing I did was to go to my old school to see my friends. They all asked me why I hadn’t been going to school. I was too embarrassed to tell them the truth. When I told my family I really wanted to go back to school, they all laughed at me. They said, “Young lady, you won’t be staying with us long enough to go back to school.” I can’t believe that my greatest dream went down the drain. They thought that I was a grown-up, just because I was tall. They didn’t know how much I felt like a child. I just liked playing with kids, going to the park, and attending school. I never felt ready to have a husband and become a housewife...
Every mean word he said and every little way he acted out in anger now made me more determined to take action. I felt in that moment like a strange energy had come over my body. Even though I kept telling myself that he is young and has hopes for the future as well as parents and a sister who love him, I would suddenly forget about all that. I couldn’t talk myself out of it, and finally that evil night came to pass. I had suddenly become a murderer, a person who had taken somebody else’s life for her own selfish happiness."
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