Reading Tehran

W hen he announced last week that Iran had enriched uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, "This is a very historic moment, and it's because of the Iranian people and their belief." It seemed like a response to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had made assurances that, "We do not have a problem with the Iranian people. We want the Iranian people to be free. Our problem is with the Iranian regime."

But the only way to know about a people is, as "To Kill a Mockingbird" reminds us, by wearing their shoes and walking around in them. So the books, music and other reference points that I have chosen to recommend are based not on the politics of the day but on the ways through which the Iranian people articulate and shape their experiences, namely through what goes by the name of culture. It is when they discover this "other Iran" -- enigmatic, humorous, self-critical and sensual -- that Americans will celebrate the differences that make each culture unique but also experience the shock of recognition, discovering how much they have in common with Iranians.

General information

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"Encyclopedia Iranica." This compendium of Iran's history and culture is a work in progress by Columbia University's Center for Iranian Studies. More than half of the volumes are now complete.

The Iranian experience past and present

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MEMOIRS I have chosen memoirs of wonderful Iranian women from two different perspectives and eras, one writing about her life before and the other about life after the Islamic Revolution: "The Blindfold Horse: Memories of a Persian Childhood," by Shusha Guppy, and the forthcoming "Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope," by 2003 Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi.

ARTICLES Roya Hakakian's "A Demonizing Call" in The Washington Post (Nov. 20, 2005). Also see Laura Secor's "Fugitives" in the New Yorker (Nov. 21, 2005) on Iranian youth.

WEB SITES www. TehranAvenue. com Marvelous insight from Iran into the experience of living there, especially from a young perspective.

www.fis-iran.org , from the Foundation for Iranian Studies, a mine of information on modern Iran, both scholarly and cultural.

www.abfiran.org , the site of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in Iran. An amazing poetic tribute to the victims of the Republic.

FICTION I have chosen samples of fiction to show how different the Iranian people are from the political images of them in the news. These books celebrate the sanctity of the profane, the world of imagination and thought:

"My Uncle Napoleon," by Iraj Pezeshkzad