Summary

At the beginning of Chapter 3, the author describes her early years in Isfahan, the city in Iran where she grew up. She outlines the strictness of her schooling, and her envy of a young woman in her class who, after a particularly difficult humiliation, urinated silently on the classroom floor. The girl never came back. Meanwhile, the author says, she continued to strive for good grades, feeling particularly humiliated when her handwriting was severely criticized. This, she adds, came after she had worked on it very hard with her father, who had urged her to think ambitiously like her mother, a very intelligent woman who had become a doctor. Her mother had also, the author says, become a Christian, which made her family targets of the suspicious government and military.

The author then describes her experiences living with her family in London...