Qantara.de - Dialog mit der islamischen Welt

In her book for young adults "33 Bogen und ein Teehaus" [33 Arches and a Teahouse], Mehrnousch Zaeri-Esfahani tells the story of her life from ages five to eleven: the beauty of her native city of Isfahan, her happy family life, the torture of living under dictatorship in Iran, and her family's flight to Germany. It is a book of poetic power without a trace of sentimentality. By Thomas LindenMore

Survival in Tehran is a matter of lying and bending the rules. In the Iranian theocracy, real life is conducted in secret. Nadja Schluter reports on what else we can learn from the wonderful book on Iran, "City of Lies" More

A Hollywood film project and a joint attempt by Iran and Turkey to register the principal works of the poet Rumi with the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list have recently caused political turmoil, above all, in Afghanistan. By Waslat Hasrat-NazimiMore

Madjid Mohit was one of those publishers and literary figures to flee Iran and its strict policy of censorship at the beginning of the nineties. These days he sells literature with ″aerial roots″ in Bremen. He was recently awarded the Hermann Kesten Prize by Germany′s PEN Centre for his untiring work promoting the work of authors in exile. By Sarah Judith HofmannMore

Sara Salar's novel was published in Tehran in 2009. It was reprinted four times that year and won several literary awards. However, after 16,000 copies had been sold, the book was banned by the censor. Volker Kaminski read the German translationMore

The Iranian New Year celebration "Nowruz" has been a feature of Persian culture for more than 2,500 years. The roots of this festival lie in the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. Today, more than 300 million people all over the world celebrate Nowruz. Shohreh Karimian looks back at the history of this new year celebration and explains some of its customsMore

Decades of repression and the establishment of a conformist state culture are beginning to take their toll on independent writers. In an all-enveloping climate of fear, Iran's young writers are coming under increasing pressure to sacrifice their independence and exercise self-censorship. For their part, the all-powerful state censorship authorities are becoming ever more professional – and restrictive – in their methods. By Faraj SarkohiMore