French authors Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir rub shoulders with the likes of Jewish diarist Anne Frank and Russian poet Osip Mandelstam in Tehran bookstores where the largely female readership lap up foreign writers.
“Iranian women read more, translate more and write more. In general, they are more present in the book market than men,” said Nargez Mossavat, editorial director of Sales publishers.
“Books are a necessity for me, it’s the only refuge, which sometimes makes me angry,” said the 36-year-old author, without dwelling on the limitations to cultural life in the Islamic republic of Iran.
As a publisher, “I choose books that speak to our society today” she said, p…
Keep on reading: Foreign authors top sellers with literature-loving Tehran women