Random Signs Iranian Nobelist

The Iranian winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, the often embattled Shirin Ebadi, has been signed to write a memoir for Random House, even as she continues to struggle with forces at home and abroad that would silence her. Ebadi, a lawyer who became the first female judge in her country and used her position to fight for the rights of women and political prisoners, is still being questioned by Iran's Revolutionary Court, and was until recently also the victim of a ban by our own Treasury Department. The government action forbade publication here of work by natives of certain proscribed countries, and it took a lawsuit by publishing organizations, Ebadi and her agent, Wendy Strothman, to overturn the ban. Random's David Ebershoff signed with Strothman for Ebadi's untitled book, in which she will detail her upbringing during Iran's revolution, her religion, the challenges of her marriage, her never-ending human rights fight and her unusual legal career. It was a world rights deal that, rather naturally, excludes Iran.