By Chip Rossetti
TEHRAN: Amid the post-election turmoil and public protests that have roiled Iran over the last several weeks, one of the most poignant (and potent) symbols for the opposition has been Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman shot by a government sniper in the midst of the Tehran crowds on June 20. A short, shaky video of her death was captured on a handheld and quickly went viral on YouTube.
Although it has now become an iconic symbol of government repression, the video has a publishing connection as well: one of the bystanders who can be seen trying to stop Neda’s bleeding is in fact an Iranian publisher. Arash Hejazi has widely been reported to be a doctor, but what has largely been overlooked is that he is also the founder and editorial director of Tehran-based Caravan Books Publishing House, a publisher of literary fiction, poetry, and serious nonfiction. A former Frankfurt Fellow, Hejazi is also a novelist as well as translator of literary works from English and Portuguese into Farsi. He is also the former managing editor of Iran’s publishing industry journal, Sanat-e-Nashr, run by the Tehran Union of Publishers and Booksellers.
Among his authors is Brazilian bestseller Paulo Coelho, whose novels Hejazi not only translates but publishes as well. (It was Coelho who first recognized his Iranian publisher on the Neda video. After confirming that Hejazi was safely out of Iran, he posted news of it on his blog.) Caravan has an extensive international fiction list, including Farsi translations of such critically acclaimed and bestselling authors as Milan Kundera, Sue Monk Kidd, Haruki Murakami, and Mark Haddon, as well as a number of Iranian writers and scholars.
Given the continuing unrest in Iran, and his unintentionally public role in the demonstrations, Hejazi expressed doubts in a recent BBC interview (above) about whether he would be able to return to Tehran any time soon. He is now in the UK doing post-graduate work, but he continues to be involved in international publishing: he is scheduled to speak at the London Book Fair next spring on censorship and freedom of expression.
VISIT: Caravan’s English language Web site
VIDEO: of Hejazi coming to Neda’s aid
READ: Coelho’s blog posting discussing Hejazi’s role in the protests
3 Comments
Good work!
Through all this girl’s death, some truth finally surfaces, and it is here in this blog. I congratulate you! Every word you wrote here is the truth.
All the rest are in my opinion, add ons of the writer’s imagination, and some of them are noted and/or famous journalists?, past war heroes? Some with offices in Washington. I have been appalled, even asked them questions, no answers, why? Because they write to only look good and have no real true answers to give. i do not know, nor can i say because reading their material, seemed in fact to me, fiction. A little bit of some surface facts – that of the video, and the rest was their imaginations completely in the article. I felt for a time there nobody cared or cares. This article is true.
This writer is a true person of compassion for this girl’s death, and i believe his has respect of her, and her death is as much a part of him, as she is a part of his article, truth. Good. Good for this individual taking the time to piece together the truth.
Neda, deserves this, not her face splattered all over t-shirts and fake articles with people making money off her death.
God love this woman with all the love you are, bless her family and keep them.
You have my respect Mr. Rosetti and readership as well.
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