Welcome to Tehran, a city where survival depends on a network of subterfuge. Here is a place where mullahs visit prostitutes, drug kingpins run crystal meth kitchens, surgeons restore girls’ virginity and homemade porn is sold in the sprawling...

Dara, a young shepherd from a remote village in the Seljuq Empire, is about to marry his love, Golnar, when the unthinkable happens: Golnar is kidnapped on their wedding day. With his sworn brother Borzoo at his side, Dara...

In her thirties, Jennifer Klinec abandons a corporate job to launch a cooking school from her London flat. Raised in Canada to Hungarian-Croatian parents, she has already travelled to countries most people are fearful of, in search of ancient...

Tehran, 1983. A city paralysed by fear, its people silenced. And the beating heart of the regime is Evin prison. Yet even within its walls three women dare to dream of a life beyond tyranny. Azar gives birth to her...

For over 30 years the Islamic Republic has resisted widespread condemnation, sanctions, and sustained attacks by Iraq in an eight-year war. Many policy-makers today share a weary wish that Iran would somehow just disappear as a problem. But with...

On a holy mountain in the depths of Persia there is a cave with a mysterious cuneiform carving deep inside it. Aga Akbar, a deaf-mute boy from the mountain, develops his own private script from these symbols and writes...

Slaughter in the Balkans, corruption, amorous women, an insurgency in the harsh wastes of a Central Asian failed state, murderous henchman, insufferable natives, interrogation by the enemy, theocratic megalomania, treachery, a sinister crime lord and pursuit by bloodthirsty maniacs...

Growing up in a small fishing village in 1980s Iran, 11-year-old Saba Hafezi and her twin sister Mahtab are fascinated by America. They keep lists of English vocabulary words and collect contraband copies of Life magazine and Bob Dylan...

Ashley Dartnell’s mother was a glamorous American, her father a dashing Englishman, each trying to slough off their past and upgrade to a more romantic and exotic present in Iran. As the story starts, Ashley is eight years old...

Drawn to the exoticism and mystery of names on a map of Iran – Isfahan, Shiraz, Meshed, Kerman, Khorassan – Michael Carroll embarked on a journey that took him through the heart of the country from the Taurus mountains...