Introduction

I moved to Italy at the age of 22. Oblivious, insecure, but full of hope. From the moment my passport was stamped in Tehran’s airport to the moment I finally got off the plane in the unbearably humid air of Rome, something kept repeating inside my head: ‘It’s over’. You might wonder whether I was fleeing something dreadful; a political persecution perhaps, a violent unrest involving guns and bombs, or a menacing family. But the reason I left Iran was far less dramatic: I was young, and I simply sought to write my life story elsewhere. Just like many other young people all over the world.