Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe co-writes memoir with husband Richard

A Yard of Sky: A Story of Love, Resistance and Hope will be published by Penguin Random House in October. It describes how the West Hampstead mum was arrested at Tehran airport as she was boarding a flight in April 2016 with 22-month old daughter Gabriella.

What followed was a six year battle to bring her home, a campaign that saw Richard lobby five foreign secretaries, stage a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office, and become embroiled in international hostage diplomacy negotitions.

The couple separately staged hunger strikes to raise awareness of Nazanin's wrongful detainment with Richard encamped outside the Foreign Office (Image: PA)

Meanwhile his British-Iranian wife spent four years in Tehran's Evin Prison falsely accused of plotting to topple the regime. She was then held under house arrest at her parents' home - still separated from Gabriella and Richard - but landed back in the UK almost six years after travelling to Iran for a family visit.

Publishers say the book is "the full account of that long journey, told by Nazanin and Richard for the very first time" and will cover both the parts of the story in the public eye, and the private moments not caught by the cameras.

Nazanin, whose detainment was linked to a long-running dispute between Britain and Iran over an unpaid debt, said: "In prison, the idea of a 'yard of sky' gave me hope and it feels right it becomes the title of our book. Writing it has helped me rediscover some of what it means to be normal again.

Nazanin, Richard and Gabriella on the steps of No 10 Downing Street in May 2022 not long after her release (Image: PA)

"This book is about the power of speaking, but also of listening.  It is my chance to tell my side of the story for the first time after years of enforced silence. Richard and I went into this alone, but we survived it together and now we are looking forward to sharing our story." 

Richard Ratcliffe added: "Writing our story has been a process of rediscovery. We both lived the last six years day to day, selectively forgetting, learning not to dwell on the cruellest things.

"Some of them I have understood fully only now. Writing has allowed us to reflect on how we endured, how we survived, how we found colour and sunlight in our “yard of sky”. There was a lot of politics in our story for an ordinary family to cope with, but also a lot of humanity. I always felt with our campaigning that if enough people cared, the right people would care enough. In the end that was true.

"Our book is a warning and a witness: hostage diplomacy still continues, others are caught in government games. But it is also a story of hope, because of the power of public care."

The couple's memoir A Yard of Sky is out in October (Image: PA)

A Yard of Sky is published by Vintage on October 12.