Raincoast Books
Available: 11/01/05
6 x 9 · 336 pages
978-1-55192-871-5
CDN $24.95 · pb

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We Are Iran

Nasrin Alavi

As the U.S. asks the world to consider Iran a “rogue state” and major threat, here is an urgent, surprising and unprecedented book about what it really feels like to be Iranian today.

We Are Iran is a multi-voiced portrait of contemporary Iran, translated from Farsi, using that nation’s weblogs as its primary source. Iran has more web diaries than Canada—only the U.S., U.K. and Japan have more—and in cyberspace many Iranians find a freedom of speech that is not available in print. This is not the Iran of the thuggish ayatollahs but a highly educated and literate country that finds Islamist fundamentalism antiquated, where 70 percent of the population is under 30 and keen to usher in a new Iran. Their voices—infused with Persian lyricism, full of wit, anger and optimism—are utterly refreshing, and utterly at odds with the grim vision of the country peddled by Western governments. Reading We Are Iran, one has the sense that a new Iranian revolution is inevitable, and the worst thing that could possibly happen would be a U.S. attack.

We Are Iran includes over 50 photos and cartoons and countless excerpts from Iranian weblogs. Fans of Persepolis and Reading Lolita in Tehran will love it.

“There are those who have called our virtual community too political and have [said] we should use weblogs for their intended use ... that is to say, for cliched daily diaries ... At a time when our society is deprived of its rightful free means of communication, and our newspapers are being closed down one by one, with writers and journalist in the corners of our jails, the only realm that can safeguard and shoulder the responsibility of free speech is the weblogs.” —safsari.persianblog.com

Nasrin Alavi spent her formative years in Iran. After attending university in the U.K. and working in the city of London and academia she returned to her birthplace working for an NGO for a number of years. Today she lives in the U.K.