Black, brown, navy, or grey were the only colours we girls were authorised to wear at school. The fundamentalists hid us, from the age of six, in a compulsory hijab. When we turned 12, we were expected to add a chador (a full body covering that left just our faces visible). In the mornings, wrapped as black packages, we filed into class to learn how to live in tents, in darkness, invisible and silent.
Chaos and trepidation were my constant companions as a child: Revolutionary guards invading my grandparents’ house as my uncle was a political activist; me hiding behind fig trees watching my grandmother burn my uncle’s books in the backyard. Each bushfire today triggers memories. I breathe the smoke of the forest and field in flame, but my
