Zahra's Paradise

The aftermath of 2009 Iranian presidential election is been highlighted in a comic novel called Zahra’s Paradise. The story begins on June 16, 2009, right after the elections protests begin. It is the story of a 19 year old boy called Mehdi. He’s been disappeared in the early days of Iranian regime’s crackdown of post presidential election demonstrators. Hassan, Mehdi’s brother, who is a blogger narrates the story of him and his mother’s search for Mehdi. The book shows their struggle for finding a lost brother and son. They searched streets, hospitals, coroners, judicial offices, prisons and even cemeteries in hope of finding him.

The book is an outcome of the new media. The reader can figure out that by looking at the cover page of the

They wanted to show the government agents as cowards. They used the owner of the copy shop for this purpose. He talked about the story of the demonstrations day for Hassan. He told him that a crowd found a Basiji alone and started to beat him to death. When the copy shop owner saw the scene, he interfered and brought the Basiji guy to his store. He did not allowed people to kill him or to beat him anymore. He hid him in the basement of his store. He gave him some water and a new shirt and pair of shoes. The copy shop owner new if he goes outside by his Basiji uniform and boots, for sure he would be killed. The owner of the copy shop has hanged a photo of Jahan Pahlevan Takhti, an Iranian legendary wrestler champion who is well known for his chivalric acts. That means the store owner has learned chivalric acts from him. The story tries to say that also Iranian people is an ally with China, but the ordinary people do not like China. It might be because their products are not better than the Japanese ones. Or it might be because of an indication given in the story that beside the “Canon” copy machine is a newspaper headlines with “China sells Iran more anti-riot gear” (69). An indication for Mehdi’s fate was the scene when the copy machine jammed and his pictures came out incorrect and