The literary website of Le Nouvel Observateur has introduced 10 books a little while after the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution and has called them “books for getting to know Iran”. This might be regarded a positive act compared with the invasion of political news against Iran; however, this is not the whole picture.

IBNA: These books could be divided into two parts at the first glance. The first are the research or non-fiction books and the second are the fiction works. Yet each group is also divided in two: the first type of research books is written by French scholars, and the second type includes works written by an Iranian - from the opposition party or else. The second part - fiction works - are translation works of people like Zoya Pirzad and works of political refugees to France which were primarily written in French and for French audiences.

The Nouvel Observateur’s action might be considered positive at the first step - among the rush of political news of Iran when stuck in the media’s invasions for its new Uranium enrichment centers, experimental fly of Simorgh shuttle, and inauguration of Jamaran cruiser - by providing a cultural outlook of contemporary Iran most of which are reasonable works far from being political. Yet we should not take for granted the presence of the leftist writers and Monafegh and Liberal members reflected among them.

Nouvel Obs’s first introduced non-fiction work belongs to Jean-Paul Rue, the French expert in Islamic world and researcher of France’s national research center, with the book titled “The history of Iran and Iranians, from the beginning up to Now”. The article writer introduces this book as the best historical book ever published by this publisher: “The author has provided the possibility of familiarity with the global history of the time beyond the ‘stable characteristics’ of Pars, and this is necessary for the knowing sacred scriptures, Hellenistic world, life of Jesus, Roman Empire, Indian civilization, and even romances of the middle ages. The appendix of the book includes useful extra information about Iran”.

At the back-cover of the book published in 2006, the author remarks that “researches on Iran have not been done sufficiently and our knowledge of Iran and Iranians is so little. There seems to be a big veil stopping us from seeing in there more than Shush, Pasargadae, Isfahan, Shiraz, Herat, Samarqand, and Iranian poetry and miniature. We should let the real gleams of the land shine to their perfection, with its unique blue sky, vast deserts with golden sands, its bare mountains, its enlightenment period’s theology, its vaults covered with azure mosaics… The knowledge of today’s Iran is a must for any historian who wants to write honestly. How could we possibly read the Holy Book without knowing his exile to Babylon and the commandment of Cyrus the Great? How could we study Greece without knowing about Iran-Greece wars? Who dares take for granted the importance of the capital of the Roman Empire during its long-lasting battles with the Parts and Sasanids?...”

The next book is the precious work of Henry Corbin, famous orientalist titled “the spiritual and philosophic aspects of Iranian Islam” released by the end of the year 1991 to the French book market. The writer says “This enormous book in 4 volumes is written by the philosopher and orientalist of Persian and Shiia culture and ideology, tries to show us how the Iranian Islam has resolved divinity and rationality. According to Corbin, the benefits of this research beyond knowing the world of Pars, is to propose a review of the pectoral non-dogmatic philosophy…” The writer also mentions that after the death of Henry Corbin a year prior to the Islamic Revolution, Christian Jambet continued his work in collaboration with Mahmoud Ali Amirmoezi to result in a book titled “What is Shia?”.

The next book released in 2009 is by Robert Baer, CIA ex-officer in Middle East. His “Interaction with Iran: New Superpower” is already introduced in Iranian press and sets to introduce Iran as a serious power in the Middle East zone.

The next book is by Armin Arefi, the young and inexperienced journalist of Iranian origin who returns to Iran to know more about his parental country and explore his journalistic profession when he is 21 and relates his memories of a two-year stay in Iran (2005-2007). The words of this inexperienced journalist are full of exaggerations and he has noticed things that Iranians have never seen!

The next belongs to Bahman Niroumand - the Iranian leftist writer, translator and political activist now living in Germany and a member of Liberal-Monafegh group. His book is titled “Iran, to face failure”, and the writer insists that the information is achieved from within Iran! It should be mentioned that the writer writes in German and this is his first book translated into French and released in French market in 2007.

The next work titled “Anthropology of Iran’s Revolution: An Impossible Dream” is written by Farhad Khosrow Khosrow Khavar, Iranian researcher resident in Paris and Professor of Paris School of Social Sciences, published in 2000. Since Khosrow Khavar mainly writes in French and has not thought of publishing his works in Persian, he is not known in Iran. Recently Mohsen Motaghi has published a book titled “Farhad Khosrow Khavar; biography and works” into Persian (1386 - Nashr & Nazar Publications). He has many works written on the contemporary Iran which can be divided into three groups: first, his writings about the revolution of Iran and social transformations of Iran in the past 25 years in books like “Public Discourse in Iran’s Revolution”, etc. Secondly, his researches about Islam and religious practices of Muslims in French society, books like “The Republic of France and the Problem of Hijab and Scarves”, “Islam of the Youth”, etc. and finally, philosophic contemplations of Khosrow Khavar including two key volumes of “Researching the self, interview with Alain Touraine on Sujet” and “The pillar of Sanctum” together with more than a hundred articles on different subjects in French and English press. Khosrow Khavar who is one of main members of the Country’s political research, has recently increased his relations with Iranian scientific centers and probably will be published more in Persian in the coming years.

And finally, there are works of fiction where two stories of Zoya Pirzad are introduced. One is “Acrid Taste of Persimmon” (which won the literary prize of Courier International in 2009), and “We are getting used to it”, the first work to familiarize French audiences with Pirzad. Zoya Pirzad could get fame among Iranians with her first novel “The lights I turn off” published in 1380 as a writer who writes about the well-off; her characters are simple, sincere and plausible and she won the same status among the French.

And the last of these ten books is a superficial, yellow-type and poor by Shahdokht Javan, Figaru’s Iranian journalist who is a laic anti-hijab activist.

Surverying other works available to the French audience more than the Nouvel Obs list would also give in the same result. That is, they are either works written by Iranian westernized dissenters full of mixed wrongs and rights cooked for the taste of unfamiliar westerners, or works done by French researchers as outsiders whose main references are to the far past history of Iran with few traces of contemporary society of Iran. What is demanding at the moment is to have books about Iran written from within with social approaches, works in the field of history and modern literature. Have you ever asked yourselves why no work of Iranian historians and sociologists who are familiar with the ups and downs of the last three decades find no way out to foreign audiences? Why our contemporary literature which is the best introducer of contemporary society of Iran so unknown to the world? The problem is not to globalize Iran’s history and literature; I rather think that the main cause is to make defense again the cultural invasion. Familiarizing the world with Iran free of political considerations is a must - that is, acknowledging our ignorant friends, defeating the witty enemy, and enriching the young Iranians who leave the borders of Iran and get lost in the razzle-dazzle of the west and forget all about their past and present.

Making a brief survey of Iran’s cultural counseling abroad whose main goal is to introduce “Cultural Iran” to the foreign audience, we find translations of Imam Khomeini’s 40 Traditions and Morteza Motahari and Ali Shariati’s works. For sure it is a great achievement, yet the problem remains that how should they find their way to the book market of foreign countries? For instance, the cultural counseling of Iran in Paris provides brief sentences to introduce these works and invites people to get them from Iran Culture House! Is this comparable with the way of presenting other materials in chain bookstores throughout France and the books already introduced with full support and great opportunities to be read?

Certainly the joy of seeing an Iranian precious and factual book read abroad is as great as Uranium enrichment pride and sending shuttles to the space.

Id : 64759