Longing for an Ordinary Day - Two Notes from Tehran
No one knows what will happen next, but everyone knows this kind of life—this suspended, existence—cannot go on forever.
The US and Iran: Dialogues Before Distrust
Matthew Shannon in conversation with Armin Omid
Love in Prison
Ayda Hagh Talab
Iranian Literature after the Islamic Revolution
Laetitia Nanquette in conversation with Arman Omid
‘Memory is an inevitable site of struggle’
An Interview with Ariel Dorfman
The Stranger: Afghan - Iranian Identity
Sepehr Atefi and Mohsen Naderi
Years of Fear
Amin Zargham
One Hundred Dead in a Small Hospital: A Nurse’s Account from Qarchak
Sahar Keramat
By late Friday, the morgue was full. “We had no choice,” Ahmad says. “We moved the bodies to the dialysis ward and laid them side by side. We even ran out of body bags. We wrapped them in sheets and tied the ends.”
When states cannot judge the corrupt: The Case for an International Anti-Corruption Court
Judge Mark Wolf, in conversation with aasoo
Iran on the Brink of Revolution? A Conversation with Jack Goldstone
Mehrad Vaezinejad
Prison Memories
Mansoureh Shojaei
This powerful volume explores the often-hidden textures of prison life in Iran, from the history of prison writing to songs, games, collective culture, and the language born behind bars. Drawing on prisoners’ lived experiences, it illuminates how creativity softens hardship and how diverse cellmates — including religious minorities - construct shared survival. Prison Memories restores overlooked voices and offers a comprehensive bibliography of Iranian prison memoirs from the Constitutional Revolution to today.
Forgotten Women
Maryam Foumani
A powerful collection that captures the lives of ordinary women incarcerated in Evin prison — women whose stories rarely surface beyond the crime pages. Written by Maryam Foumani, who interviewed them while she herself was imprisoned for her human rights work in Iran. She brings to life the voices of women awaiting execution for murder, and those jailed for theft or prostitution, with no one waiting beyond the prison gates. They all emerge in Foumani's narrative with stark, human immediacy.
Leaden Days
Yunes Heydari
In this powerful memoir, Yunes Heydari—an Afghan migrant who lived in Iran—recounts his detention in the country’s notorious Sefid Sang border camp before being expelled to Afghanistan more than 25 years ago. Through vivid journal entries, he captures the brutal realities of a place that has come to symbolize homelessness, humiliation, and violence in the collective memory of Afghan migrants—a haunting testimony of survival and displacement.
The Role of Religion in the Modern World
Edited by Iqan Shahidi
A collection of essays and interviews from a wide spectrum of secular and religious thinkers. Conscious of the impact of religion in post-1979 Iran, where faith has been used as a tool of oppression, the collection offers a concise examination of religion’s place in contemporary life. The volume surveys key theoretical perspectives and explores how diverse religious communities understand their current realities and imagine their most constructive role in the public sphere.
Essays on Constitution
Changiz Pahlavan
Leading political scientist, Changiz Pahlavan illuminates the core principles of constitutional thought and the dynamics of constituent assemblies. From the philosophy of constitutions and their ties to liberalism to India’s constitutional experience and Iran’s four constitutions in a century, he explores how foundational laws are made and how politics, revolutions and citizens shape them. Drawing on his seminal work on Iran and Afghanistan, Pahlavan offers a lucid guide to the forces that craft modern governance.
With Ebrahim Golestan
Cyrus Alinejad
An expansive interview with Ebrahim Golestan, one of twentieth-century Iran’s most influential intellectuals. interviewed in his Sussex home, in England, Golestan reflects on his childhood, family, filmmaking, fiction, politics, and the vibrant literary world he shared with figures like Hedayat, Chubak, Akhavan and Daryabandari. Through Alinejad’s clear, direct prose, the conversations unfold into a compelling portrait of a towering cultural voice and the era that shaped him.
Present Past: Notes from the Life of a Persian/American Composer
Hormoz Farhat
A selective memoir by the late composer and musicologist Hormoz Farhat, traces a life shaped by music and migration. From his childhood in Iran to his studies and teaching in the United States, his return to a booming Iran in the 1970s, and his escape to Ireland after the 1979 Revolution, Farhat reflects with clarity and grace on home, exile, and artistic legacy.
Abdul-Baha on the World Stage
Edited by Ayda Hagh Talab
A rich collection assembled by Ayda Hagh Talab to mark the centenary of the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. Bringing together diverse writings on his life, thought, and global influence as an Iranian thinker and social reformer, the volume highlights his commitment to the unity of humanity, his engagement with modern social questions, and his practical efforts for education, equality, and peace. A timely introduction for Iranian readers to a figure whose ideas continue to resonate across cultures and eras.
A Woman, Grace of Her Time
Reza Farokhfal
Reza Farokhfal explores the poetry and literary spirit of Tahereh Qorrat al-Ain, seeking to understand the poet through her own verse. Are the poems attributed to her truly hers? What do they say to us today? And where do Tahereh and her poetry stand in the lineage of Iranian women’s literature—from Rabi‘a to Forough? Farokhfal approaches these questions through a literary lens, offering fresh insight into a legendary figure.
