Arash Hejazi

My memoir, published originally in 2011, is now available on this website for anyone who would like to read the full text. The Kindle edition is available via Amazon.

A lot of people may hate me for saying this. But I think the time for having a periodical journal has passed. Journal: Created for a reason Scholars and scientists needed a way to publish the result of their research. Originally they published their research as ‘letters’ to peers and colleagues. Then people thought that these papers needed to be...

Modern day professional and learned societies were formed a few centuries ago to promote scientific discoveries and discourse as a whole. They were to represent and promote specific scientific and scholarly disciplines or professions and to champion advanced education of practitioners in those disciplines. It was immediately evident that deciding on a universal mean to keep a record and disseminate...

Half the people on the Circle Line are reading the Evening Standard; a dozen are reading books and the rest are just staring into space. I try to spot someone looking at the others. No one. No one looks into the eyes of another. This stillness on the move is a constant feature of London when the working day comes...

Friday, 12 June 2009 We woke up early in the morning. My mother-in-law, who had come from Iran to visit us and help Maryam while she was studying, Maryam, Kay and I. We took our passports and got on the coach from Oxford to London. We arrived at the Embassy of Iran in London at about 11 in the morning....

I was invited to participate in the Frankfurt Book Fair Fellowship program at the beginning of the new government’s term. The Fellowship Program, which lasts three weeks, was one of the best times of my life. We were about 18 young editors and literary agents from around the world, travelling through Germany, visiting German publishers and making friends along the...

I was incredibly excited. I was at the airport’s VIP lounge at 2 in the morning, waiting for Paulo’s plane to land, knowing that there were nearly a thousand fans waiting outside to see him. Paulo had touched thousands of lives in Iran even before his arrival. His books were about believing in dreams and following the signs. With their...

We had two months of military training before being assigned to our posts. A few of my classmates and I and were sent to the Montazeri Military Centre, located in a field 20 kilometres outside the city of Kermanshah in West Iran. We arrived in Kermanshah at 6 a.m. We were going to spend the next two years in the...

Going to medical school is—or was, back in 1988—a dream come true for so many young Iranians. Given how tough the competition was, securing a place meant that you ranked among the brightest and the best. On my way to enrolment I felt I was walking on air. As, I am sure, did the rest of my classmates. I was...

The bombing of the cities; news of the front dominating all conversation; teachers continually emphasizing the greatness of our soldiers’ sacrifice and the importance of our support; the military marches played on TV all day; pleas for donations for the soldiers; buses and trucks rushing through the streets, collecting offerings from the people and ferrying volunteer soldiers to the front;...

But let’s go back to 1978. The Shah, deciding in desperation to suppress the riots, appointed one of his generals as the new prime minister and initiated a curfew after dark. Khomeini, who had moved from Iraq to Paris, directed the people to shout ‘Allah-o Akbar’ (God is Great) from the rooftops every night at 9 in protest against the...