A View of Iran Through Books, Films, and Music: NPR

Understanding one of the world’s oldest civilizations cannot be achieved through a single movie or book. But recent works by Iranians in literature, journalism, music and film are a powerful starting point. Clockwise from top left: Holy fig seed, for the sun after long nights, cutting rocks, it’s just an accident, a martyr!, and Kayhan Kalhor.

neon; the pantheon; Produced by Gundam Films; neon; vintage; Julia Gunther for NPR

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neon; the pantheon; Produced by Gundam Films; neon; vintage; Julia Gunther for NPR

Few Americans have had the opportunity to visit or explore Iran, an ethnically diverse nation of more than 90 million people that was effectively sealed off from the United States after the 1979 Iranian revolution. Now, with a US- and Israeli-led war on Iran, Iranian ideas, feelings and opinions are less accessible. However, some recent books, films, and music by Iranian artists and journalists and the Iranian diaspora help illuminate this ancient culture and its contemporary politics.

These suggestions are only a starting point – the emphasis is on recent works done by Iranians themselves, rather than what is seen by outsiders.

Books

For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-Led UprisingBy Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo Tabrizi

There are some excellent titles that trace the history of Iran from ancient times through the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty to the Iranian Revolution. But there are few books that help us understand the Iran of 2026 and the people who live there now. A National Book Award-nomination is a distinction For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-Led Uprising Journalists Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo Tabrizi, it chronicles — almost in real time — the Woman, Life, Freedom movement that began in 2022, when Jamalpour was working undercover as a journalist in Tehran. In 2024-25, Jamalpour (now living in exile in the US) and I spent a year together on a Knight-Wallace Fellowship for Journalists at the University of Michigan; His insights into contemporary Iran are outstanding.

GoldBy Rumi, translated by Haleh Liza Ghafori

If Americans are familiar with Persian poetry, it is through the popular “translations” of the 13th-century Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi, whose work was dissected by the late American poet Coleman Barks, who neither read nor spoke Persian. Molana (“our master”), as the Iranians call him, references Islam. (Instead, Barks “interpreted” pre-existing English translations.)

In 2022, Iranian-American poet, performance artist, and singer Haleh Liza Ghafori offered the first volume of corrections in the form of fresh Rumi translations at once accessible, deeply thoughtful, and immediate. The second volume, waterFollowed last year.

Martyrdom!: A Novel, By Kaweh Akbar

This 2024 debut novel by Kaveh Akbar, a poetry editor at The NationAn unbridled tour-de-force with wit and insight into diaspora entanglements, the nature of identity in the post-war on terror, and the inter-generational impact of the 1979 revolution on Iranians. The protagonist, Iranian-born but American-raised Cyrus Shams, has struggled his entire life with addiction, depression, and insomnia, and is doing his best to make sense of the world at the “intersection of Iranian-ness and Midwestern-ness.” As with many of the titles here, fiction and fact are woven together: the story centers around the true story of the US downing an Iranian passenger plane in 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war.

The Stationery Shop: A NovelBy Marjan Kamali

Marjan Kamali’s 2019 love story is the sad story of a young woman named Roya and an idealistic activist named Bahman, who meet cutely in a Tehran shop in the 1950s, but their planned marriage falls apart due to both familial and political turmoil, as Iran’s democratically elected government ends with the establishment of the US-Birth. Roya flees to the US for a fresh start, but the two reunite in 2013, wondering: what if life had turned in a different direction?

movies

Mutiny 53

Directed by Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani and co-written by Walter Murch, this 2019 documentary chronicles Operation Ajax, in which the CIA and Britain’s MI6 conspired to remove Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and replace him with a friendly ruler, Shah Mohammad. (The Shah was ousted in the 1979 revolution.) fresh air Critic John Powers noted in his review, “The background to oil-based insurgency in the modern Middle East emerges first. Shortly after black gold was discovered in Iran in the early 20th century, the British oil company now known as BP held a sweetheart deal for its exploitation. And the Iranians weren’t allowed to see them.”

Cutting through rocks

Photo by Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Aini Cutting through rocks It is up for this season’s Oscars after premiering at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. This inspiring documentary follows Sara Shahvardi – a divorced, childless motorcyclist – as she campaigns to become the first woman elected to the city council of her remote village and dreams of teaching girls to ride and ending child marriage.

It was just an accident

Famous director Zafar Panahi’s latest film – Officially Banned from Making Movies in Iran – 2025 It was just an accident. Panahi, who has been jailed several times for his work, has said in interviews that his inspiration for this brutal and shockingly funny thriller was the people he met while in prison: a certain encounter with an auto mechanic named Wahid. fresh air Critic Justin Chang called out It was just an accident “An explosion of pure anti-dictatorship rage.”

Holy fig seed

This 2024 thriller – shot undercover by director Mohammad Rasoulof – centers on a family whose father, Iman, is appointed as an investigative judge in Tehran. But it soon becomes clear that their work actually has nothing to do with the investigation. As Iman, his wife and two daughters become suspicious of each other in our era of mass surveillance, the city streets below erupt into real-life woman, life, freedom protests.

Music

Kayhan Kalhor

One of the primary ambassadors of Persian classical music was composer and kamanche (Iranian bowed-instrument) performer Kayhan Kalhor. Although music, like poetry, has been central to Iranian culture for centuries, all forms of music were initially banned after the 1979 revolution. Since then, however, Iranian classical musicians have ridden many looping cycles of official condemnation, grudging tolerance, censorship, and attempts at regime cooperation.

Despite those difficulties, Kalhor has built a thriving career in Iran and abroad, including winning a Grammy Award as part of the Silkroad Ensemble and earning three nominations as a solo artist. In 2012, I invited him to our Tiny Desk for a solo show. “Didn’t know I could have goosebumps for 12 minutes straight,” a YouTube commenter wrote recently; I couldn’t have put it better.

Saeed Shanbezadeh

Of Iran’s 92 million people, about 40% come from various ethnic minorities, including Azeris, Kurds, and Armenians. One of the most fascinating communities is the Afro-Iranians in the south of Iran, many of whose ancestors were brought to Iran as slaves from East Africa. Syed Shanbezadeh, a multi-instrumentalist and dancer who traces his ancestry to Zanzibar, celebrates that heritage with his band and specializes in Iranian bagpipes and percussion.

The underground metal scene

Despite ongoing restrictions on music – including a continuing ban on female vocalists performing in mixed-gender public settings – Iran is home to a thriving underground scene for metal and punk. Although it is fictional, a 2020 short play by Farbod Ardebelli It is forbidden to see us scream in Tehran — which was shot in secret in Tehran, with the director giving instructions via WhatsApp remotely from the US — gives a flavor of that real-life scene and the dangers those artists face.