An Iranian Challenge

The Ayatollahs' Democracy

In vividly readable style ... Majd gives us what's been missing for so long: a nuanced, in-depth portrait of a country both far more sophisticated and far less rigid than western policymakers have yet appreciated

Lesley Hazleton, author of After the Prophet: the epic story of the Shia-Sunni split

No writer knows more about modern Iran than Hooman Majd. Nor does any other commentator write more cogently, or more beautifully

Reza Aslan, author of No god but God and Beyond Fundamentalism

Hooman Majd was born in Tehran, Iran in 1957, and lived abroad from infancy with his family who were in the diplomatic service. He attended boarding school in England and college in the United States, and stayed in the U.S. after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Majd had a long career in the entertainment business before devoting himself to writing and journalism full-time.

Iran is a country with global ambitions, an elaborate political culture, and enormous implications for world peace. How will its diversity of political positions resolve itself? Drawing on privileged access to Iranian society, Hooman Majd has spoken to ayatollahs, politicians and ordinary people to show that, despite the violence of the 2009 elections, the ideal of an Iranian republic is still alive. A personal, candid tour of the political landscape, The Ayatollahs' Democracy is a powerful dispatch from a country at a historic turning point.

The Paradox of Modern Iran

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

Captivating ... wise and witty ... essential reading

Westerners who tend to seek out only Iranians who talk and think like themselves should use this as a guide

Mr President, if you are serious about negotiating with Iran, you need ... the best book on contemporary Iranian culture and all of its complexities and contradictions. Don't go to Tehran without it

Washington Monthly, ‘What Obama Should Read’

The best book yet written on the contradictions of contemporary Iran ... it captures like no book in recent memory the ethos of the country, in elegant and precise prose

It is rare to have this perspective delivered in English with such richness and nuance - it is a perspective quite distinct from the reportorial assembly work of Western reporters or the pained laments of Iranian exiles . . . one hopes that American policymakers will take the time to absorb this book

Majd's cosmopolitan perspective permeates his book . . . an impressionistic collection of reporting, memoir, travelogue and commentary

Hooman Majd was born in Tehran, Iran in 1957 and brought up in Britain and the United States. He has written about Iran for Newsweek, the Financial Times, GQ, The New Yorker and The New York Times among others and comments on the situation in Iran for a wide variety of media. With links to both conservative and secular Iran during his frequent visits, his writing offers a unique perspective on the country, one both 100% Iranian and 100% American. He lives in New York City.

Hooman Majd, acclaimed journalist and New York-residing grandson of an Ayatollah, has a unique perspective on his Iranian homeland. In this vivid, warm and humorous insider's account, he opens our eyes to an Iran that few people see, meeting opium-smoking clerics, women cab drivers and sartorially challenged presidential officials, among others. 
 
Revealing a country where both t-shirt wearing teenagers and religious martyrs express pride in their Persian origins, that is deeply religious yet highly cosmopolitan, authoritarian yet reformist, this is the one book you should read to understand Iran and Iranians today.

Hooman Majd

A sympathetic and nuanced picture of a complex society too often misinterpreted by the outside world

An American Family in Iran

In The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay, Hooman Majd introduces us to the delights and challenges of life in the so-called axis of evil. His funny, wry account of daily life in Iran is a mixture of extreme driving, intense sociability, yellow-tinged sheep's yoghurt and truly good Cuban cigars, interspersed with challenges from the religious police, stealthy internet use and polite yet concerning interrogations inside government ministries. At parties he both hears stories from friends of life in Evin prison after the Green Revolution and witnesses heady Western-style nihilism. From the smoggy streets of Tehran to the beautiful cities and mountains around it, this is a warm and revealing account of life in reverse-exile.

Hooman Majd

Praise for The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay

Fascinating

A sympathetic and nuanced picture of a complex society too often misinterpreted by the outside world

Books by Hooman Majd

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