Last Thursday, I got up at 3:30 a.m. so as to catch the first flight to Kermanshah city. It’s a two hour drive from Kermanshah to Sannadaj (the capital of Kurdistan Province), a mountainous city located in the west of Iran, where people speak Kurdish. Since it was a one-day-long Read more…
During the last fortnight, over 1200 kindergarten teachers attended workshops on reading promotion, which were held in Tehran. These workshops were parts of the bigger plan of ‘Mondays for Reading’, in which the Iranian association of the kindergartens’ heads, the coordinating center of booklovers all around the country, the Iranian Read more…
Five years ago, we weren’t sure if it was a good idea to call our project a festival, since there are plenty of festivals in Iran, which somehow have made the word meaningless. Now I’m so happy that this small-budget festival has found its way through this crowded world. Besides Read more…
Last week, Mr. Bertrand Bainvel, UNICEF Representative in Middle East and North Africa, and I met up with members of the Nasimshahr’s book club for kids and young adults. Nasimshahr is a small town, situated south of Tehran, wherein Afghan and Iranian (from all around the country) migrant workers live. Read more…
Yesterday was Ketabgardi (Tour of Bookstores) Day in Iran. It’s a yearly reading campaign (launched by an Iranian cultural figure) that asks people to call at their local bookstores, helping the business keep on working, expressing their gratitude to all good bookstore keepers. A number of writers, translators and renowned Read more…
It may look easy to hold a kids’ book festival without government’s support in other countries, but here in Iran it may not. I had an idea to hold such a festival in the beautiful town of Kashan which is known with its gorgeous old houses worldwide, and has been Read more…
Read Hamshahri newspaper’s article about third year of book club’s activities in link below: A cup for book readers