Publications

In this article Shiva Rahbaran discusses the reception of Nicholas Mosley in the English-speaking world as a “novelist of ideas”, the tag of “unreadability” that comes with it and his tireless quest for finding a way to approach the question: “is freedom...

In her review of Laleh Khadivi’s novel, The Walking, Shiva Rahbaran sees a poignant portrayal of exodus and exile of a typical Iranian fate after the 1979 Islamic revolution. The novel, Shiva Rahbaran finds, captures the schizophrenic love-hate relationship between...

In her interview with Jafar Panahi, Shiva Rahbaran explores the filmmaker’s image of himself as an engagé film-maker – an artist who has a moral and social commitment, yet distances himself from all ideological and political propaganda. In Panahi’s eyes, the cinema in...

Amir Hassan Cheheltan, the celebrated Iranian novelist, speaks to Shiva Rahbaran about the tension between artists and intellectuals, the power of mysticism and the long-lasting effects of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.

Simin Behbahani, Iran’s most prominent poet and a two-time Nobel Prize nominee, speaks to Shiva Rahbaran about the greatest epic in history, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, the nightmare of censorship and why Iran will eventually achieve democracy.