The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay: An American Family in Iran Author: Hooman Majd | Language: English | ISBN:
B00CQZ65KQ | Format: EPUB
The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay: An American Family in Iran Description
With U.S.–Iran relations at a thirty-year low, Iranian-American writer Hooman Majd dared to take his young family on a year-long sojourn in Tehran. The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay traces their domestic adventures and closely tracks the political drama of a terrible year for Iran's government. It was an
annus horribilis for Iran's Supreme Leader. The Green Movement had been crushed, but the regime was on edge, anxious lest democratic protests resurge. International sanctions were dragging down the economy while talk of war with the West grew. Hooman Majd was there for all of it. A new father at age fifty, he decided to take his blonde, blue-eyed Midwestern yoga instructor wife Karri and his adorable, only-eats-organic infant son Khash from their hip Brooklyn neighborhood to spend a year in the land of his birth. It was to be a year of discovery for Majd, too, who had only lived in Iran as a child.
The book opens ominously as Majd is stopped at the airport by intelligence officers who show him a four-inch thick security file about his books and journalism and warn him not to write about Iran during his stay. Majd brushes it off—but doesn't tell Karri—and the family soon settles in to the rituals of middle class life in Tehran: finding an apartment (which requires many thousands of dollars, all of which, bafflingly, is returned to you when you leave), a secure internet connection (one that persuades the local censors you are in New York) and a bootlegger (self-explanatory). Karri masters the head scarf, but not before being stopped for
mal-veiling, twice. They endure fasting at Ramadan and keep up with Khash in a country weirdly obsessed with children.
All the while, Majd fields calls from security officers and he and Karri eye the headlines—the arrest of an American "spy," the British embassy riots, the Arab Spring—and wonder if they are pushing their luck.
The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay is a sparkling account of life under a quixotic authoritarian regime that offers rare and intimate insight into a country and its people, as well as a personal story of exile and a search for the meaning of home.
- File Size: 1759 KB
- Print Length: 274 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0385535325
- Publisher: Doubleday (November 5, 2013)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00CQZ65KQ
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,865 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #2
in Books > Travel > Middle East > Iran - #39
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Relations - #66
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Middle Eastern
- #2
in Books > Travel > Middle East > Iran - #39
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Relations - #66
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Middle Eastern
Hooman Majd's latest book is a very personal recounting of the year he recently spent living in Tehran. It was his first time to live in Iran since his own infancy - Majd grew up living outside of Iran, primarily in the US and UK, and so he was living in Iran for the first time as an adult, bringing his American wife and infant son along with him.
Iran today is perhaps the most strategically important country in the world where the U.S. does not maintain a diplomatic presence. We need to understand one another better than we presently do. Although the U.S. is not officially represented in Iran, the UK did maintain an embassy until 2011 - and in fact it was on Nov 29, 2011, during Majd's stay in Tehran, when the British Embassy was stormed and subsequently shut down. The UK immediately expelled Iran's embassy staff from London, and only recently have the two countries began to talk together about reopening their respective embassies.
This book attracted me because I want to understand Iran better, at a personal level. Reading Majd's words, I have the impression that he is a very good and decent person. His pride of Iran and of his Iranian heritage is evident throughout. He is very honest in sharing his personal thoughts throughout his stay in Tehran, his anxieties as he lived in Iran and helped his wife and son to adapt to the country.
Their adjustment to life Tehran takes time. The pollution of Tehran is severe (Economist magazine in 2011 said that Tehran is one of the most unlivable cities in the world), and his descriptions of the prevalence of small scooters darting through congested traffic, and the adaptations needed to live with a small child in Tehran (they learn that toting a car seat while taking their son with them in taxis is unworkable), are interesting.
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