Books to Read on Iran

History books on Iran

The historian Ali Ansari, author of Iran: A Very Short Introduction (2015), talked to us about Iranian history. For an in-depth account, Paul Lay, editor of History Today, recommended Abbas Amanat’s 1000+ page book, Iran: A Modern History (2018), as one of the best history books of the year and the result of a "lifetime's learning" by a leading scholar.

For books on the Persian empire, there's Persians: The Age of The Great Kings by British historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones or you can try the historical novel he recommends, Creation by Gore Vidal.

Books on the Iranian Revolution

Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuściński
The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran by Roy Mottahedeh
All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer

Novels and Memoirs of Iran

The satirical novel My Uncle Napoleon (1973) by Iraj Pezeshkzad is recommended by both Jasmin Darznik and Pooneh Ghoddoosi as the most popular Iranian novel of the 20^th century and a good introduction to the Iranian character and culture. (A competing, but very different novel is Blind Owl (1936) by Sadeq Hedayat).

More recently, the memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) has been translated into 33 different languages and sold millions of copies in the West. The memoir written as a comic, Persepolis (2000), was also an international sensation.

Narges Mohammadi won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” She is currently in jail. "This time I was found guilty because of the book you are holding in your hands — White Torture (2022)." Also recommended on Iranian women: Iranian Women’s One Million Signatures: Campaign for Equality (2012).

Iranian food, gardens and football

The chefs, Jila Dana-Haeri and Shahrzad Ghorashian, authors of New Persian Cooking, talk about Iranian cuisine. And Penelope Hobhouse discusses her fascination with Persian gardens in her interview on horticultural inspiration. Iranian feminism mixes with football in John Turnbull’s recommendation of the film, Offside.