About Book
"There are several peculiar features about writing any detailed account of the recent political events in Persia which make necessary some slight explanation. The first point is that Persian political affairs, fraught as they are with misfortune and misery for millions of innocent people, are conducted very much as a well-staged drama - I have heard some critics say, as an opera bouffe". (William Morgan Shuster, "The Strangling of Persia", 1912). So Hooman Majd introduces his story of Iran, with its volatile politics, jostling leaders, global ambitions, and enormous implications for world peace. What does it mean for the world if "Green" represents not a revolution but a civil rights movement, pushing the country toward a particular brand of "Islamic democracy"? And how will Iran's diversity of political positions, so often sidelined in news reporting, ultimately resolve itself? With witty, candid, and stylishly-intelligent reporting, Hooman Majd introduces top-level politicians and clerics alongside regular Iranians, including Jewish community leaders.
A personal, candid tour of the political and social landscape in Iran, "The Ayatollahs' Democracy" is a powerful dispatch from a country at a historic turning point.
About Author
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. He worked at Island Records and Polygram Records for many years, with a diverse group of artists, and was head of film and music at Palm Pictures, where he produced The Cup and James Toback's Black and White. He now writes for GQ, Newsweek, The New York Times and many others, and has been a regular contributor to The Huffington Post from its inception. He lives in New York City and travels regularly back to Iran. His first book, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, was published in 2008.