Iran Life

In early 2009, Roxana Saberi, an American journalist born to Iranian and Japanese parents, was forced from her home in Tehran, secretly detained, and falsely accused of espionage—then sentenced to eight years in prison. Between Two Worlds is the gripping and inspirational true story of her harrowing imprisonment and the faith that got her through it, until an international outcry helped secure her release.

Since the revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has permitted very few Western scholars to conduct research in the country. Here Julia Huang provides a remarkable account of local tribal Iranian life, depicting a community largely beyond the scope and reach of foreign travellers and the Western media. The Qashqa’i nomads are migrant pastoralists–Huang documents their difficult livelihoods and lifestyles, their society and culture, and explains how this Turkic-speaking group relates to the wider Iranian society and the Islamic Republic.

Since the revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has permitted very few Western scholars to conduct research in the country. Here Julia Huang provides a remarkable account of local tribal Iranian life, depicting a community largely beyond the scope and reach of foreign travellers and the Western media. The Qashqa’i nomads are migrant pastoralists–Huang documents their difficult livelihoods and lifestyles, their society and culture, and explains how this Turkic-speaking group relates to the wider Iranian society and the Islamic Republic. Focusing on a small group of women, she shows us how they adapt to a rapidly changing world while retaining tribal values and a distinctive ethnolinguistic identity as one of Iran’s national minorities. Engagingly written and documenting a disappearing way of life, Tribeswomen of Iran is essential reading for all those interested in Iran, the Middle East, anthropology, nomadism and gender.

For more than a century Iran's social, political, and cultural history has been defined by a struggle toward or away from modernity.

Jacqueline Saper, named after Jacqueline Kennedy, was born in Tehran to Iranian and British parents. At eighteen she witnessed the civil unrest of the 1979 Iranian revolution and continued to live in the Islamic Republic during its most volatile times, including the Iran-Iraq War. In a deeply intimate and personal story, Saper recounts her privileged childhood in prerevolutionary Iran and how she gradually became aware of the paradoxes in her life and community—primarily the disparate religions and cultures.

On Tuesday 13 September 2022, all Mahsa Amini has planned is a day shopping in Tehran. Her birthday is next week. But she is arrested as she comes out of the subway – the Guidance Patrol deem her hijab inadequate. On Friday she is pronounced dead. By Sunday, women have taken to the streets across Iran, setting their headscarves on fire and cursing the Supreme Leader. Months later, workers down their tools and businesses close. The battle cry everywhere: Women, Life, Freedom.