Iran Women

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation. Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.”

Jacqueline Saper, named after Jacqueline Kennedy, was born in Tehran to Iranian and British parents. At 18 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.

This history of modern Iran is not a survey in the conventional sense but an ambitious exploration of the story of a nation. It offers a revealing look at how events, people, and institutions are shaped by currents that sometimes reach back hundreds of years. The book covers the complex history of the diverse societies and economies of Iran against the background of dynastic changes, revolutions, civil wars, foreign occupation, and the rise of the Islamic Republic.

In September 2022, a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Jîna Amini, died after being beaten by police officers who arrested her for not adhering to the Islamic Republic’s dress code. Her death galvanized thousands of Iranians—mostly women—who took to the streets in one of the country’s largest uprisings in decades: the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.

A photo on Masih's Facebook page: a woman standing proudly, face bare, hair blowing in the wind. Her crime: removing her veil, or hijab, which is compulsory for women in Iran. This is the self-portrait that sparked "My Stealthy Freedom", a social media campaign that went viral. But Masih is so much more than the arresting face that sparked a campaign inspiring women to find their voices. She's also a world-class journalist whose personal story, told in her unforgettably bold and spirited voice, is emotional and inspiring.

How do you cheer up a woman who has spent hours cleaning prison toilets with a broken mop? The secret is in a tres leches cake. In Iran’s prisons, women endure horrors: they are beaten, interrogated, and humiliated in a thousand ways. Even a whisper to a fellow inmate can be punished. Yet—in spite of anything and everything—they resist: they bake. They console each other, cry together, dance together. The Evin Prison Bakers’ Club is a call to stand up for women, life, and freedom by a woman still fighting for a free Iran.

Raw, Unvarnished, provocative, and poetically written, "The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage" is the memoir of Roxana Shirazi, who was raised during Iran's revolution within a politically active family and sent to England by her family aged ten during the Iran/Iraq war, and led far astray by the sound - and the sex appeal - of rock and roll.

The first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Shirin Ebadi has inspired millions around the globe through her work as a human rights lawyer defending women and children against a brutal regime in Iran. Now Ebadi tells her story of courage and defiance in the face of a government out to destroy her, her family, and her mission: to bring justice to the people and the country she loves.

"A Prison Story - Iran," tells a compelling story of a young woman arrested on a Tehran street for distributing pro-democracy literature in 1981. It reveals the workings of a despotic regime in suppressing voices of reason and consolidating power.

Savushun chronicles the life of a Persian family during the Allied occupation of Iran during World War II. It is set in Shiraz, a town which evokes images of Persepolis and pre-Islamic monuments, the great poets, the shrines, Sufis, and nomadic tribes within a historical web of the interests, privilege, and influence of foreign powers; corruption, incompetence, and arrogance of persons in authority; the paternalistic landowner-peasant relationship; tribalism; and the fear of famine.

This is a powerful memoir of a young girl, growing up in the tumultuous revolutionary Iran in the mid 80’s, which sadly, once again we are witnessing these days the horrendous arrest and executions of many young men and women in Iran. The author chronicles her early childhood with her Bibi (grandmother) as well as her imprisonment at the age of eighteen on trumped-up political charges. During her brutal incarceration in the women’s cell block of the Shiraz Adelabad Prison in the southern Iran, she was tortured and made to live in harsh over-crowded conditions among many other young ...

On August 4, 2020, a huge explosion in the heart of Beirut killed hundreds of people – it is the apocalypse of a sequence of events that have led to Lebanon’s unprecedented collapse. Journalist Dalal Mawad has interviewed tens of Lebanese and foreign women - victims of the explosion, and those stuck in Lebanon - and weaves an extraordinary story of survival, corruption and impunity.

Women have played a key role in these protests, refusing to wear a hijab and cutting their hair in public to chants of 'Woman, Life, Freedom'. In Farhad Khosrokhavar's account, these protests represent the first truly feminist movement in Iran, and one of the first in the Muslim world, where women have been in the vanguard. There have been many movements in the Muslim world in which women have taken part, but rarely have women—and especially young women—been the driving force.

Azadeh Moaveni was an American reporter in Tehran in 2005 covering the rise of Ahmadinejad when the unexpected happened - she met her soul mate, fell in love, and became pregnant. Facing an uncertain future and hiding her pregnancy from the religious authorities until she could marry, Moaveni was spied upon; her phone, tapped. Shortly after giving birth, she leaned that she would was soon to be arrested and sent to the notorious Evin prison.

Never underestimate just how dangerous a woman on a mission can be. Sally Amir never wanted to be a spy. The life of covert espionage was forced upon her the day she discovered her husband was not, in fact, a simple embassy attaché – but a top-secret spy for the Israeli Mossad. But now, undercover in Tehran, posing as a businesswoman and tasked with infiltrating the highest levels of the Iranian government, is not the time to ponder the life choices that led her there.

This book uncovers the narratives of Iranians, mainly women, who lead Iran's fight for liberation. Their firm pursuit of justice compelled me to capture their extraordinary journey, transcending borders and beckoning worldwide attention. This work is more than a mere story; it's a heartfelt plea to the world, urging champions of freedom to unite. The persecution of Iran's writers, stifling of voices, and incarceration of activists reverberate as part of a systemic oppression that erodes our shared humanity.

September 2022, a trip to Iran, the Western world colliding with a peculiar nation of the Middle East. Following an online academic collaboration, a young Italian researcher, Alice, decides to visit her colleague and friend, Setareh, in Iran. They plan two weeks together, offering Setareh the opportunity to showcase the real Iran, countering Western perceptions. However, unforeseen events disrupt their plans. Alice's long-time boyfriend, Marco, unexpectedly joins the trip, leading to awkward and critically inappropriate situations. Moreover, the tragic incident involving Mahsa Amini sparks ...

A nuclear arms pact with Iran; Muslims slaughtering innocents, especially Christians, throughout the Middle East and Africa; terrorists spreading their evil throughout civilized society; Islamic radicals spreading fear wherever they appear: these are many of the things taking place today. Many in our civilized and humane world don’t understand why and how these horrific events could happen. As amazing as it might seem to people not familiar with the Bible, all these events are clearly detailed and finitely explained in the Bible, particularly in the Book of Revelation. Most are not aware ...

Two women. Two revolutions. A lifetime of exile and longing. In 1978, seventeen-year-old Omid is forced to flee Iran on the eve of the Islamic Revolution, leaving behind a mother whose defiance against the regime has made her a marked woman. Arriving in America, Omid believes her stay will be temporary. But when her mother is declared a fugitive, her dreams of return collapse, and she is left to build a life in exile—one shaped by loss, resilience, and the echoes of a past she cannot escape. Three decades later, Omid is a mother raising her daughters in Connecticut, trying to bury the ...

Molly Irani, visionary cofounder of the James Beard Award–winning Indian restaurant Chai Pani, shares her journey of how she and her husband turned their passion for next-level food and hospitality into a thriving business that puts people first. Growing up with parents who owned a restaurant...