City of Lies by Ramita Navai

City of Lies

Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran

Ramita Navai

Public Affairs · Print & ebook · September 9, 2014

Rich, absorbing, and exotic?City of Lies travels up and down Vali Asr Street, Tehran's pulsing thoroughfare, from the lavish shopping malls of Tajrish through the smog that lingers over the alleyways and bazaars of the city's southern districts.

Buy on Amazon

We earn from qualifying purchases.

Who it’s for
A sharp, intimate look at Tehran, where private lives and public lies keep colliding.
Genres
Middle Eastern Politics, Iranian History, Middle East Travel
Published
Public Affairs, September 9, 2014

About this book

Rich, absorbing, and exotic?City of Lies travels up and down Vali Asr Street, Tehran's pulsing thoroughfare, from the lavish shopping malls of Tajrish through the smog that lingers over the alleyways and bazaars of the city's southern districts.

Continue reading

Ramita Navai gives voice to ordinary Iranians forced to live extraordinary lives: the porn star, the aging socialite, the assassin and enemy of the state who ends up working for the Republic, the dutiful housewife who files for divorce, and the old-time thug running a gambling den. In today's Tehran, intrigues abound and survival depends on an intricate network of falsehoods: mullahs visit prostitutes, local mosques train barely pubescent boys in crowd control tactics, and cosmetic surgeons promise to restore girls' virginity. Navai paints an intimate portrait of those discreet recesses in a city where the difference between modesty and profanity, loyalty and betrayal, honor and disgrace is often no more than the believability of a lie.

Tehran Under Pressure

A sharp, intimate look at Tehran, where private lives and public lies keep colliding.

Come here for

  • Tehran’s hush and fracture
  • truth-seeking with social risk

Expect

  • history with a journalist’s edge
  • plainspoken, uneasy momentum

Where it sits

Middle Eastern Politics54%
Iranian History53%
Middle East Travel40%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Iranian History
Authors
Ramita Navai
Publisher
Public Affairs
Published
September 9, 2014
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Iranian History