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My fear, however, is of dying in a land where the wage of the grave-digger is higher than the price of human freedom. Ahmad Shamlu, Iranian contemporary poet After my June 25th interview on BBC regarding my personal observations on Neda Agha Soltan’s brutal murder, I read in the press on July 1st that a warrant had been issued by...
They were a few brief minutes that Arash Hejazi will never forget, that have changed his life for ever, that have shocked the world and ripped every last shred of legitimacy from Iran’s tyrannical regime. There was the pandemonium of the protests, the terror as the riot police charged, and the sudden crack. And there was this beautiful young woman...
As you might have read in Paulo Coelho’s blog, I was the doctor who tried to save Neda. I am the person in the video who tries to control her bleeding… in vain. I was the one who looked into her eyes, right before they lost their light forever. A famous Iranian writer called Sadeq Hedayat once wrote: ‘There are...
A trans-cultural and trans-lingual publishing phenomenon Arash Hejazi May 2009 Introduction In April 2008, Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian author of The Alchemist, published in more than 150 countries (Sant Jordi, 2005) acquired the 2009 Guinness World Record for being the Most Translated Living Author for the same book (Sant Jordi, 2008). He also holds the Guinness Record for The...
Arash Hejazi Oxford Brookes University Publishing and Language Issues March 2009 ‘I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides, and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.’ Gandhi (1)...
“… It could be said that The Princess of the Land of Eternity is a modern allegory created by the mind of a modern writer who tries to say that we are all Sysiphes who each time we reach the top or bottom of the mountain, we have to change our place with another Sysiphe, althogh the stone remains the...
http://www.caravan.ir/En/BookDetails.aspx?BookId=233
The author takes the reader along his labyrinth of stories, like 1001 Nights [Arabian Nights], to prove that all the loves are the same, there is only one woman and one man, and the world is repeating itself endless, and without getting bored. read the rest from BBC
The censorship by the “Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance” of Iran is crushing us. Today is the inauguration day of Obama, the first African American President of the United States of America. Exactly 40 years ago, in 1968, a man who had this dream was assasinated because he believed that this dream was possible. 45 years ago, before the...
The author [of the Princess of the Land of Eternity] knows how to write a good story, he chooses the words wisely, he puts the scenes together with utmost preci-sion, he introduces the characters skillfully, he uses appropriate suspense and all the tools for hooking up the reader to read every page. This novel is a strong, and beautiful story…...
Believing in the impossible
It seems somehow strange that despite all these problems, Iranian publishing industry is relatively large. There are over 8000 publishers registered, from which about 1200 publishers publish more than 10 titles a year. Every year, according to the reports published by Iran’s Book House (www.ketab.net), more than 18000 new titles enter the market, which consists mainly of bookstores (about 1500...
Coming from a nation which is proud to have produced one of the most ancient books in history (Avesta by the Persian prophet Zarathustra), and coming from a religious background where god swears By the pen and whatever they record[1], it is naturally hard to believe that our government is one of the few States left in the modern world...
Every time in Frankfurt, I see people anxious, running from one appointment to another, eager to do their business, to find a place in the publishing world that is bravely resisting against the danger of extinction. “What are they hurrying to do?” was my first impression the first time I went to Frankfurt, and it didn’t take me long to...
A hand shakes me. I open my eyes wearily. It is our lovely flight attendant of the gigantic Lufthansa plane. “We are preparing to land sir,” she says, “please return the back of your seat to the upright position, and fasten your seatbelt.” I try to move clumsily. “Sir, would you like a drink before we land?” While drinking my...
Although translation plays an important role in Iranian book market, the local authors are very significant among the Persian readership. Contemporary classics such as Sadeq Hedayat (although completely forbidden since the Ahmadinezhad administration), Mahmood Dolatabadi, Sadeq Choobak, Hooshang Golshiri and the others are read with huge popularity among Iranians. The new generation of Iranian authors, not widely translated yet, are...
I am Arash Hejazi, a novel writer, translator, editor, from Iran. To know about me, you can check my profile at the official website of Caravan Books Publishing House, the publishing house which I am its chief editor. Being an editor in Iran, has its own challenges and pecularities, quite another world, comparing it with the life of authors, editors...
My name is Arash Hejazi, and I talk about publishing (whatever that means) and other stuff here. I work for John Wiley and Sons Inc.. Views are my own.
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