Books and Everything But: Tehran's Book Fair Alternates as City's "Meat Market"

By Nassim Mobasher

The 17th Annual International Book Fair began in Tehran on May 3rd and was attended by thousands of people. But in the Iranian context, ‘book fairs,’ like anything else, aren’t just about books.

The Fair is spread across some twenty different buildings, uptown. Outside the entrance of the fair, pirated copies of the controversial film, “The Lizard,”(which is currently in theatres), are being sold. Others are selling some beautiful shawls, a really nice purple one catches my eye…. um, books, yes, back to books.

The building dedicated to books in foreign languages has booths from American and European publishing houses. The range of books being offered is very obviously filtered. I only pick up a copy of Post-Kant Critical Theory and head out to discover other chapters of this story.

The building dedicated to books in Arabic catches my attention. Inside it, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Syria and various other countries have decorated their booths with massive pictures of their Kings and leaders. There’s no representative from Iraq, but I notice a booth named “Hamas.” I stop and look closely and notice the picture of the recently killed Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, Hamas’s leader in the Palestinian resistance organization. I ask if Hamas attends all book fairs in the Middle East. ‘No, just Iran, we have offices in Iran, so we can afford it.’ I ask about Iranian government funding to this organization and I’m told that it is minimal, ‘not as much as Hizbollah gets.’ A few meters down is Hizbollah’s booth, with military artillery and uniforms on display… it somehow doesn’t inspire one to read books.

The heat wave is felt as soon as I step outside one of these buildings, but it isn’t the only thing felt. This annual book fair is a major meat-market. For men and women interested in picking up a date, North Americans have the bar; Tehran has the Annual Book Fair. It seems a large number of youth aren’t here for the love of books but for a different, more biologically oriented hormonally driven love.

Software companies have also taken up a building and each booth is louder than the next, with music and ‘interactive learning.’ Apparently, CD’s take up honorary membership in the ‘book’ family and are exceptionally well received in book fairs. Of course, Microsoft is a no-show, but I discover a homepage provider that is actually from Toronto and I am unreasonably thrilled at the sight of the maple leaf. Local software companies adherent to copy-left ‘laws’ sell technological knowledge for measly dollars and pennies, and any international trade treaty that doesn’t like this Iranian practice can cry a river of crocodile tears! Copy-left is a part of our identity, our heritage!

There are several buildings dedicated to Farsi books, all with a 10% discount. Books include anything from The Art of Applying Makeup, to beautifully crafted copies of the Shahnameh (The Book of Kings, epic Persian poetry dating back a thousand years). There’s a booth that has quite a few young people gathered around it, and I wonder what it is offering. Britney Spears, Shakira, Ricky Martin, and a whole lot of other books about commercialized pop music, the same music that is illegal and forbidden in the Islamic Republic.

A bestseller at this book fair: the 47-paged, newly published book by President Khatami titled A Letter for Tomorrow--explaining why he failed us, or at least attempting to. It costs 1000 Riyals ($0.12), and there are posters everywhere advertising it. Almost everyone is buying a copy. Khatami himself is gracing the cover and in the back is his message to youth: openness to criticism, belief in God, and hope for a brighter future, ‘for the process of Reform has only just begun.’ In 47 pages of the most eloquent prose that is his usual style, he manages to say all but nothing we didn’t already know. Khatami, let’s save the trees, please.

And finally, the main reason why I am here: after asking around several publishers, I’m pointed to the booth dedicated wholly and completely to the works of the late Sadeq Hedayat--Iran’s most talented writer. Ever. I ask for a copy of his most famous novel, The Blind Owl, which has been translated into several different languages since its publication in 1936. I cannot wait to get my hands on it…wait, she’s shaking her head, they don’t carry it. What! Why? “The authorities came and collected it this morning. They said it is subject matter that leads readers to commit suicide. They took every copy we carried.” Leads to suicide? No, that’s Khatami’s book: all that hope in the ever-bright future certainly makes me want to jump off a cliff.

But of course, the authorities know best and we dare not question their wisdom.

There it is! The 17th Annual International Book Fair, which ironically doesn’t carry Iran’s greatest national novel. It did, however, have some damn-good ice cream, damn-good!

Nassim Mobasher is a Canadian political science student currently living in Iran.