Salt Journals: Tunisian Women on Political Imprisonment

Salt Journals is a compelling collection of essays by Tunisian women, sharing their personal experiences with dictatorship and oppression. While rooted in the history and culture of Tunisia, these narratives reflect universal feelings of isolation, pain, and the indomitable quest for freedom.

Drawn from a variety of different professions, including a lawyer, an engineer, a nurse, a student, and a city council member, among others, these women are contesting the culture of silence surrounding women’s prison narratives. Employing words as their weapons of nonviolent resistance, the authors recount the harsh realities of a militarized state and its oppressive prison system. Their creative defiance against state repression emerges not just as a means of survival, but as a profound act of dissidence, reclaiming control from the brutality imposed upon their lives.

A testament to the power of self-representation, Salt Journals opens a vital space for dialogue on the necessity of empathy, resilience, and the importance of speaking out in the face of tyranny.

Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi author and political activist who has written short stories, novels, and nonfiction. Some of her more recent works include Packaged Lives: Ten Stories and a Novella and Dreaming of Baghdad.

Christalla Yakinthou is a lecturer in the political science department at the University of Birmingham.

Virginie Ladisch is a senior expert at the International Center for Transitional Justice.