The latest cultural headlines in the media.

Documents on Iranian Constitutional Movement on display at INLA 

Tehran Times: The Iran National Library and Archives (INLA) is playing host to an exhibition of documents on the Iranian Constitutional Movement.
The Iranian Constitutional Movement took place between 1905 and 1911 and led to the establishment of a parliament in Iran.
Entitled “Dawn of Awakening”, over 300 articles with the central theme of the movement including articles on the social issues of those days and revealing the roles of women and the leaders in the movement, are on display at the exhibit, Persian news agencies reported on Wednesday.
Articles on the biography of Ayatollah Sheikh Fazlollah Nuri, one of the leaders of the movement as well as his books, are also being exhibited.
In addition, Ayatollah Seyyed Abdollah Behbahani and Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Tabatabaii were the other leaders of the movement.
Also on display is the book “Dawn of Awakening”, which contains first pages of the periodicals published during those years and active at that time.
The exhibit will be running until August 13 at the library located on Haqqani Highway.
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Iranian troupe to perform play based on Lorca’s “Yerma” in Belarus 

Tehran Times: “Bitter like Blood in the Veins of Yerma”, a play based on Federico Garcia Lorca’s “Yerma”, is scheduled to be performed by an Iranian troupe at the White Tower International Theater Festival in Belarus in September.
Milad Nikabadi will direct the troupe, which is composed of Behruz Kazemi, Alireza Mehran, Farzaneh Soheili, Hanieh Najafi, Amineh Mazruii, Bahar Zarvani and Parisa Derkhshandeh.
Kiumars Qanbari has written the play based on Lorca’s “Yerma”, which tells the story of a childless woman living in rural Spain. Her desperate desire for motherhood becomes an obsession that eventually drives her to commit a horrific crime.
Nikabadi plans to stage the play in Tehran in fall.
The play was performed during the 14th International University Theater Festival in Tehran in May 2011 and received nominations for best director, best stage design and best costume. However, it won neither of these awards.
In addition, Farzaneh Soheili was nominated for best actress award at the event.
The White Tower festival is scheduled to be held in Brest from September 7 to 15.

Iranian director Mohammad Hatami staged “Zar”, based on William Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and the Iranian zar rite, during the festival last year. It won the Best Play Award of the event.
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‘Harry Potter’ Tops NPR’s List of 10 Best Young Adult Novels 

Iran Daily: The witchcraft and wizardry of the ‘Harry Potter’ series has entranced fans, who chose it as the greatest teen novels ever in an online poll conducted by NPR.
Results from the survey were released Tuesday.
The franchise grossed more than $2.3 billion in revenue from its film series.
And in a tally of more than 75,000 participants, the series beat out the second-placed “The Hunger Games” and Harper Lee’s third-placed 1960 classic, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Newcomers to the list included No. 4, “The Fault in Our Stars,” the story of a young cancer patient who falls in love with a boy whose leg was amputated. The author, John Green, also made it into ninth place with his earlier novel, “Looking for Alaska.”
The rest of the top 10 list was dominated by fodder for high school literature classes.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” came in fifth, just as attention has been drummed up about the forthcoming film trilogy.
J.D. Salinger’s loss-of-innocence novel “Catcher in the Rye” placed sixth, tailed by Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.”
“Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury topped Markus Zusak’s 2006 bestseller “The Book Thief.”
The nominees were suggested by NPR’s audience and a panel with The New York Times’ Pamela Paul, the Onion’s A.V. Club book editor Tasha Robinson, Publisher’s Weekly staffer Diane Roback and librarian Ted Schelvan filtered down the 1,200 recommendations to a voting list of 235 books.
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