STOLEN REVOLUTION: BETRAYAL AND HOPE IN MODERN IRAN HC – BOZORGMEHR SHARAFEDIN-YEGANEH TORBATI

" Rare and riveting LYSE DOUCET Blistering . . . a genuinely remarkable achievement THE TIMES Compulsively readable . . . unputdownable’ JON LEE ANDERSON Dramatic, personal and often heartbreaking GUARDIAN Rarely has a book been so timely . . . Essential reading LINDSEY HILSUM One of the most perceptive books on modern Iran in years NEW YORK TIMES THE NEW STORY OF IRAN • The moving, riveting and immersive story of six Iranians who, together, lived the entire arc of modern Iranian history: from the promise of the 1979 revolution to its betrayal by the Islamic mafia state and a people’s undying spirit of resistance. Fuelled by Iranians’ dreams of social justice and political freedom, the 1979 revolution swept aside the shah’s ailing, repressive monarchy. But in its place the revolution’s leader Ayatollah Khomeini and his acolytes built a system that served his narrow Islamic fundamentalist faction and worsened every failing and brutality that had existed under the shah. In this landmark new book, award-winning journalists Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati tell the entwined stories of six Iranians, providing a powerful new lens on Iran’s recent history in all its bitter twists and stubborn hope: • Mehdi Karroubi: a devotee of Khomeini, he rose to the heights of power on the wave of the revolution, before being cast out of its inner circle. • Hila Sedighi: a young activist, who gave voice through her poetry to her peers’ hopes during the reform years and ultimately immortalised their shattered dreams. • Amir Moghadam: an ambitious government bureaucrat, who witnessed corruption and graft on a scale that impelled him to take enormous risks to expose the truth. • Said Rahmani: a successful global tech entrepreneur who returned to Iran to spark a start-up boom in his native country, and encountered a ruthless security state that wanted his company for itself. • Rozhin Yousefzadeh and Kosar Eftekhari: both born in the 1990s, they escaped their gender