Life in Iran


Book Description

This is a series of powerful drawings by Iran's greatest satirist. Drawn in exile during the Islamic Revolution of 1979, they remain, 15 years later (after the replacement of the Shah by the Ayatollah and the Ayatollah by the President and the Spiritual Guide) as meaningful and sharp-sighted as ever.




Reconstructed Lives


Book Description

Iranian women tell in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. The Islamic revolution of 1979 transformed all areas of Iranian life. For women, the consequences were extensive and profound, as the state set out to reverse legal and social rights women had won and to dictate many aspects of women's lives, including what they could study and how they must dress and relate to men. Reconstructed Lives presents Iranian women telling in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. Through a series of interviews with professional and working women in Iran—doctors, lawyers, writers, professors, secretaries, businesswomen—Haleh Esfandiari gathers dramatic accounts of what has happened to their lives as women in an Islamic society. She and her informants describe the strategies by which women try to and sometimes succeed in subverting the state's agenda. Esfandiari also provides historical background on the women's movement in Iran. She finds evidence in Iran's experience that even women from "traditional" and working classes do not easily surrender rights or access they have gained to education, career opportunities, and a public role.




Pebbles in the Rice


Book Description

Set during the turbulent time that resulted in the Iranian revolution, this memoir chronicles my life as the 6-foot tall, blue-eyed American bride of an infamous Iranian student activist. From braving a 14-year-old in a brand new military uniform pointing his recently issued AK 47 at my pregnant belly, to accidentally being appointed the "official" US delegate to the international conference of non-aligned countries, Pebbles in the Rice: My Life in Iran reveals, reports and remembers the sights, smells and nuances of Iran's people and culture during the turbulent time immediately prior to, and after, the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Pebbles in the Rice: My Life in Iran is the must-have, background color commentary companion that puts the current political situation in Iran in an understandable, personalized and compelling context. It answers the rhetorical question: Shouldn't we get to know a people before we bomb them? It is a first-person chronicle of the political and historical events at the center of the birth of modern Islamic fundamentalism that is as relevant today as it was thirty years ago. From my first arrival in Tehran in 1978, when I was introduced to the power of Khomeini by a relative who would later join with other students and seize the U. S. Embassy, to braving the home invasion of the local militia who arrested my husband, my life in Iran was far from the mundane existence of an expat housewife. Returning to the U. S. in 1982 and narrowly escaping the capture, imprisonment and execution suffered by our friends and relations, Pebbles in the Rice: My Life in Iran chronicles the end of my marriage to my Iranian husband and his untimely death.




Inside Iran


Book Description

U.S. relations with Iran have been fraught for decades, but under the Trump Administration tensions are rising to startling levels. Medea Benjamin, one of the best-known 21st century activists, offers the incredible history of how a probable alliance became a bitter antagonism in this accessible and fascinating story. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution brought a full-scale theocracy to the 80 million inhabitants of the Middle East's second largest country, with. The rule of the ayatollahs opened the door to Islamic fundamentalism. In the decades since, bitter relations have persisted between the U.S. and Iran. Yet how is it that Iran has become the primary target of American antagonism over nations like Saudi Arabia, whose appalling human rights violations fail to depose it as one of America's closest allies in the Middle East? In the first general-audience book on the subject, Medea Benjamin elucidates the mystery behind this complex relationship, recounting the country's history from the pre-colonial period to its emergence as the one nation Democrats and Republicans alike can unite in denouncing. Benjamin has traveled several times to Iran, and uses her firsthand experiences with politicians, activists, and everyday citizens to provide a deeper understanding of the complexities of Iranian society. Tackling common misconceptions about Iran's system of government, its religiosity, and its citizens' way of life, Benjamin makes short work of the inflammatory rhetoric surrounding U.S.-Iranian relations, and presents a realistic and hopeful case for the two nations' future.




Women and the Islamic Republic


Book Description

A study of citizenship formation in post-1979 Iran, examining the centrality of non-elite women's participation in the process.




Voices From Iran


Book Description

Mahnaz Kousha interviewed fifteen Iranian women in Tehran who originally came from cities and towns throughout Iran. The youngest was 38, the eldest in her 50s. Extensive excerpts from their dialogues form the heart of this remarkable book. With admirable candor the women explore their relationships with their mothers, fathers, husbands, and children. They reflect upon the institutions of courtship and marriage and address issues of childcare, housework, and women's employment. They talk openly about their concerns, ambitions, and frustrations. Finally, they discuss everyday personal problems and the solutions they devise to cope with such difficulties. Offset by telling commentary, these conversations offer significant firsthand insights into the life experiences of the modern Iranian woman and her brave search for identity. Because it covers previously uncharted ground, this volume fills a sizable gap in the study of gender and family relationships in Iran. Abundant footnotes on similar studies in the United States and other countries not only add sociological richness, but also make the book relevant beyond Iran and the Middle East.




To See and See Again


Book Description

A stunningly well written, subtle, entertaining, and understated account of family life lived in America and in Iran before, during, and after the Iranian Revolution.




Precarious Lives


Book Description

Drawing on extensive ethnographic engagement with youth in Tehran and Isfahan as well as with migrant workers in rural areas, Shahram Khosravi weaves a tapestry from individual stories, government reports, statistics, and cultural analysis to depict how Iranians react to the experience of precarity and the possibility of hope.




Being Modern in Iran


Book Description

The election of Mohammad Khatami as President, the prospect of renewed dialogue between Tehran and Washington, and the display of popular rejoicing that greeted the nation's football team's qualification for the 1998 World Cup have shed light on aspects of everyday life in post-revolutionary Iran which have often been overlooked in the West. Through the Iranian example, this text reviews the debate not merely about political Islam, but also about democratic transition and its relation to social change.




Guest House for Young Widows


Book Description

A gripping account of thirteen women who joined, endured, and, in some cases, escaped life in the Islamic State—based on years of immersive reporting by a Pulitzer Prize finalist. FINALIST FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Toronto Star • The Guardian Among the many books trying to understand the terrifying rise of ISIS, none has given voice to the women in the organization; but women were essential to the establishment of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s caliphate. Responding to promises of female empowerment and social justice, and calls to aid the plight of fellow Muslims in Syria, thousands of women emigrated from the United States and Europe, Russia and Central Asia, from across North Africa and the rest of the Middle East to join the Islamic State. These were the educated daughters of diplomats, trainee doctors, teenagers with straight-A averages, as well as working-class drifters and desolate housewives, and they joined forces to set up makeshift clinics and schools for the Islamic homeland they’d envisioned. Guest House for Young Widows charts the different ways women were recruited, inspired, or compelled to join the militants. Emma from Hamburg, Sharmeena and three high school friends from London, and Nour, a religious dropout from Tunis: All found rebellion or community in political Islam and fell prey to sophisticated propaganda that promised them a cosmopolitan adventure and a chance to forge an ideal Islamic community in which they could live devoutly without fear of stigma or repression. It wasn’t long before the militants exposed themselves as little more than violent criminals,more obsessed with power than the tenets of Islam, and the women of ISIS were stripped of any agency, perpetually widowed and remarried, and ultimately trapped in a brutal, lawless society. The fall of the caliphate only brought new challenges to women no state wanted to reclaim. Azadeh Moaveni’s exquisite sensitivity and rigorous reporting make these forgotten women indelible and illuminate the turbulent politics that set them on their paths.