Hooman Majd – författare

"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 opéra bouffe." William Morgan Shuster, "The Strangling of Persia" , 1912So 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.

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.

What happens when you move to Iran, heartland of the 'Axis of Evil', with your family in tow? - asks Hooman Majd, author of the acclaimed The Ayatollah Begs to Differ and The Ayatollah's Democracy"Welcome to Iran," he said. "This isn't Switzerland." We have an idea of the texture of life in Paris or Rome, but what is the texture of life like in Tehran? How do you get a driving license? Or secure an account with a discreet and reputable liquor dealer? And how on earth do you explain to an official that your son was indeed born just a month after your marriage? In The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay, Hooman Majd introduces us to the daily delights and challenges of life in the so-called axis of evil. His funny, wry account of daily life 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.'Fascinating' - Independent'A sympathetic and nuanced picture of a complex society too often misinterpreted by the outside world' - TelegraphHooman Majd was born in Tehran, Iran in 1957 and has lived in the US since 1979. He has written for numerous publications including The New Yorker, the New York Times and the Financial Times. His previous books are the New York Times bestseller The Ayatollah Begs to Differ and The Ayatollahs' Democracy. He moved to Tehran with his American wife and baby son.

What happens when you move to Iran, heartland of the 'Axis of Evil', with your family in tow? - asks Hooman Majd, author of the acclaimed The Ayatollah Begs to Differ and The Ayatollah's Democracy"Welcome to Iran," he said. "This isn't Switzerland." We have an idea of the texture of life in Paris or Rome, but what is the texture of life like in Tehran? How do you get a driving license? Or secure an account with a discreet and reputable liquor dealer? And how on earth do you explain to an official that your son was indeed born just a month after your marriage? In The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay, Hooman Majd introduces us to the daily delights and challenges of life in the so-called axis of evil. His funny, wry account of daily life 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 was born in Tehran, Iran in 1957 and has lived in the US since 1979. He has written for numerous publications including The New Yorker, the New York Times and the Financial Times. His previous books are the New York Times bestseller The Ayatollah Begs to Differ and The Ayatollahs' Democracy. He moved to Tehran with his American wife and baby son.[Praise for The Ayatollah Begs to Differ]: 'Captivating ... wise and witty ... essential reading' GQ'Illuminating, critical and affectionate' Economist, Books of the Year'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'

From the author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ comes a globe-spanning memoir of identity, exile, and reinvention.In many ways, Hooman Majd has led a charmed life: the son of a high-ranking diplomat in pre-Revolutionary Iran, he grew up in the upper echelons of Iranian society and in cosmopolitan diplomatic enclaves in San Francisco, London, and Washington, DC. In early adulthood, after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolution in 1979, Majd sold real estate to fellow Iranian exiles in Beverly Hills, tried his hand at writing, and found his way to the orbit of Chris Blackwell, the impresario of Island Records and mastermind behind the careers of Bob Marley & the Wailers, U2, and other global superstars. After rising through the ranks—and sometimes, but not always, the charts—Majd went on to write three influential books about his homeland and served as a consultant and contributor to NBC News on Iran. Yet, for all this authority and access, Majd could never truly call any place “home.”As he recounts in his open-hearted memoir Minister without Portfolio—named for the tongue-in-cheek title Blackwell bestowed on him—Hooman Majd was always shadowed by a sense of precarity, even as he bantered with ambassadors’ wives at smoke-filled soirees or traded gossip with Grace Jones and Dennis Hopper at Goldeneye, Blackwell’s Jamaican estate and the former home of Ian Fleming. Majd had seen first-hand the havoc wrought on his family—and so many others—by the Iranian revolution. All his life, he has been questioned, frisked, or even threatened at points of entry. Though he has risked several return trips to Iran, today, officially, he can never go back. How can you build an identity when no place will claim you as its own?Told with grace, insight, and longing—and filled with riotous, sometimes shocking portraits of larger-than-life personalities and illuminating insights about the entanglements between Iran and the West—Minister without Portfolio is a trenchant memoir of belonging nowhere and everywhere at once.