Author Description

"Tehran is a city of contradictions. Its swollen population of fourteen million and upwards contains the religious, the irreligious and the simply indifferent. Located on a major fault line, it is nevertheless in the throes of a construction boom. While regular demonstrations after Friday prayers call for the death of Great Satan America, Iranians of all ages enjoy a long-standing love affair with Western luxury brands. Among the hip and fashionable, the veil has morphed from cover-up to come-on, and the young women in colourful scarves and heavy makeup are increasingly targeted by the female officers of the Special Guidance Patrols. Transit Tehran: Young Iran and Its Inspirations is an original anthology of writing and images primarily featuring the generation of photojournalists who came of age during the reformist movement. Newsha Tavakolian, Abbas Kowsari, Javad Montazeri and Omid Salehi continue to document the social transformation of their country despite the government's mass closures of newspapers and magazines. Unexpected facets of urban experience are explored in the art of Sadegh Tirafkan, the new journalism of Asieh Amini, and the short stories of Alireza Mahmoodi-Iranmehr. Transit Tehran also celebrates the long tradition of artistic and cultural resistance that has influenced young Iranians, noticeably in the work of veteran writer and editor Masoud Behnoud, premier satirist and cartoonist Ardeshir Mohassess, and photographers Kaveh Golestan and Mohsen Rastani. The Internet, youth and fashion culture and the homegrown trends of the Islamic Republic fuel the city's paradoxes its pains as well as its obvious pleasures. Sunk in permanent smog, tangled in traffic jams, suffused with the threat of war and political unrest, life in Tehran is chaotic and unpredictable. Its passions and preoccupations make it a city like no other."--Book cover.