Crime fiction set in Iran—including a finalist for the Shamus Award for Best PI Short Story. “Tehran Noir is not only a solid crime collection, but an illuminating look into day-to-day life in the Middle East, with religious and political implications galore, as well as racial tensions bubbling just beneath the surface. . . . The stories in Tehran Noir aren’t always easy to read, but they are engaging in the extreme.” —San Francisco Book Review Includes brand-new stories by Gina B. Nahai, Salar Abdoh, Lily Farhadpour, Azardokht Bahrami, Yourik Karim-Masihi, Vali Khalili, Farhaad Heidari Gooran, Aida Moradi Ahani, Mahsa Mohebali, Majed Neisi, Danial Haghighi, Javad Afhami, Sima Saeedi, Mahak Taheri, and Hossein Abkenar. “A stellar and diverse cast of Iranian writers. . . . A collection such as this is able to bring Iran to life for the foreign reader in a way other fiction and non-fiction cannot. . . . Superb.” —PopMatters

An unflinching noir exploration of one of the world's most volatile cities.

Keret and Gavron masterfully assemble some of Israel's top contemporary writers into a compulsively readable collection.

An Iranian American returns home to help a friend and finds his life in danger: “Remarkable . . . a smart, eloquent novel.” —Dalia Sofer, author of The Septembers of Shiraz The year is 2008. Reza Malek’s life is modest but manageable—he lives in a small apartment in Harlem, teaches at a local university, and is relieved to be far from the blood and turmoil of Iraq and Afghanistan, where he worked as a reporter, interpreter, and sometimes lover for a superstar journalist who has long since moved on to more remarkable men. But after a terse phone call from his best friend in Iran, Reza reluctantly returns to Tehran. Once there, he finds far more than he bargained for: the city is on the edge of revolution; his friend is embroiled with Shia militants; and his missing mother, who was alleged to have run off before the revolution, is alive and well—while his own life is now in danger. Against a backdrop of corrupt clerics, shady fixers, political repression, and the ever-present threat of violence, this novel offers a telling glimpse into contemporary Tehran, and spins a riveting morality tale of identity and exile, the bonds of friendship, and the limits of loyalty. “[A] swift, hard-boiled novel . . . Shadowy zealots exist everywhere, whether in conference rooms or interrogation rooms or—most often—in rooms that can serve as both.” —TheNew York Times Book Review “A gripping portrait of a nation awash in violence and crippled by corruption.” —Publishers Weekly “A smart political thriller.” —Laila Lalami, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of The Moor’s Account “Gives readers a visceral sense of life in a country where repression is the norm . . . Recommended for espionage aficionados and for readers who enjoy international settings.” —Library Journal “A fascinating glimpse of contemporary Iran through the familiar story of childhood friends whose paths are beginning to diverge irreversibly.” —Shelf Awareness

This unique anthology of Iraqi noir fiction collects fourteen original stories of crime, conspiracy, regret, and revenge in the capital of Iraq. The centuries-old city of Baghdad has known many rulers, many troubles, and many crimes. But while most Iraqis would agree that their life has always been noir, there has not been a literary tradition to capture this aspect of the culture. By commissioning the fourteen stories collected here—most by Iraqi writers, all by authors familiar with Baghdad—editor Samuel Shimon and Akashic Books have created what may be the first anthology of Iraqi crime fiction ever assembled. Here you will read of life in Baghdad both during and after the Saddam Hussein era, with stories of fear in the shadow of a ruthless dictator; kidnappings in the time of U.S. occupation; detectives who investigate political conspiracies; and tales of revenge, assassination, mental illness, and family struggle in the war-torn City of Peace. Baghdad Noir includes brand-new stories by Sinan Antoon, Ali Bader, Mohammed Alwan Jabr, Nassif Falak, Dheya al-Khalidi, Hussain al-Mozany, Layla Qasrany, Hayet Raies, Muhsin al-Ramli, Ahmed Saadawi, Hadia Said, Salima Salih, Salar Abdoh, and Roy Scranton.

Informed by firsthand experience on the battlefronts of Iraq and Syria, Abdoh captures the horror, confusion, and absurdity of combat from a seldom-glimpsed perspective that expands our understanding of the war novel.

"Relaying Cinema in Midcentury Iran investigates how the cultural translation of cinema has been shaped by the physical translation of its ephemera. Kaveh Askari examines film circulation and its effects on Iranian film cultures in the period before foreign studios established official distribution channels and before Iran became a notable site of so-called world cinema. This transcultural history draws on cross-archival comparison of films, distributor memos, licensing contracts, advertising schemes, and audio recordings. Askari meticulously tracks the fragile and sometimes forgotten material of film as it circulated through the Middle East into Iran and shows how this material was rerouted, reengineered, and reimagined in the process. "--

"Tehran North," Shirana Shahbazi's latest photo-project from October 2015, is a subjective road movie captured from a car driving through the Iranian capital at night. The book offers a black and white kaleidoscopic vision of Tehran's urban landscape. "Camera Austria" publisher and director Reinhard Braun characterizes it as "a film noir traversing a megacity that, although remote and unknown to many, seems to be as common as others." He continues: "Housing areas, illuminated shops and billboards, highways, facades vanish either in darkness either in bright light, slipping away from any decisive representation. Uncanny encounters clash with everyday banality. The mysterious is at the same time forced and undermined, suppressing any exoticism. Beauty is shaking knowledge, as fascination is shaking distant objectiveness, and vice versa. Both an inventory and a construction, highly artificial and generic, Tehran North ends with nearly unidentifiable shapes and almost slides into darkness. But this is not a statement of finishing; it is an introduction to all the other possible images to follow up." --Publisher's website.

A wry and humorous account of the author's quest to get her Iranian passport renewed. She embarks on a bizarre and circuitous journey, meeting a colourful cast of characters along the way: two photographers who specialise in Islamic portraits, a forensic surgeon who trades in human organs, a madam who wants to send prostitutes to Dubai and a grandmother who offers a live chicken to an implacable official. Tehran, Lipstick and Loopholes is a fascinating look at the constraints and contradictions of contemporary life in Tehran from the author's unique standpoint of being both a native of Iran and a foreigner.

‘An excellent contribution to our knowledge of Iran and Soleimani.’ Kim Ghattas, author of Black Wave When the US assassinated Qassem Soleimani, he was one of the most powerful men in Iran. Known as ‘the shadow commander’, he enacted the wishes of the country’s Supreme Leader across the Middle East, establishing the Islamic Republic as a major force in the region. But all this was a long way from where he began – on the margins of a nation whose ruler was seen as a friend of the West. Through Soleimani, Arash Azizi examines how Iran came to be where it is today. Providing a rare insight into a country whose actions are often discussed but seldom understood, he reveals the global ambitions underlying Iran’s proxy wars, geopolitics and nuclear programme.