“On the Horizon of Ferdosi Publishing: Preview of Upcoming Releases”

Biography of Karim Momen

Karim Momen was an Iranian-Swedish painter and sculptor, known abroad by the name Karl Momen, who passed away last year in Sweden. Nearly a decade after the end of the Second World War, he emigrated to Germany, where he studied architecture. Alongside his architectural work, he gradually immersed himself in painting and sculpture. He later moved to Sweden, where he created the majority of his artistic works. Yet, his most renowned piece—the monumental sculpture Metaphor: The Tree of Utah (1986)—was built in the United States.

Despite his striking contributions, Momen remains an unfamiliar name in Iran. Though books about his work have been published in English, there has yet to be a comprehensive volume in Persian. Ferdosi Publishing (Sweden) has therefore undertaken the task of preparing the first Persian-language book on this enigmatic artist. This book, based on Momen’s own notes, weaves together his life story and opens with an introduction to his artistic style.

The History of Iranian Jews in the Modern Era

Author: Mehrdad Amanat

This book offers a detailed account of the hardships endured by Iranian Jews, particularly during the Qajar period, yet its central concern lies in examining the broader phenomenon of religious conversion in Iran. The author explores how systemic religious discrimination under the Qajars often led Jews to change their faith. These conversions included, at times, adoption of Islam, the Bahá’í Faith, or even Christianity, but in all cases, conversion was often a means to improve one's social standing.

Thus, the deeply entrenched religious inequalities in Iranian society gave rise to the phenomenon of Jewish conversion as a form of social navigation. To support his analysis, the author employs the compelling method of drawing upon personal biographies, weaving individual lives into the broader fabric of historical narrative. The result is a work that is at once a historical and sociological study, anchored in precise data drawn from the rhythms of everyday life.

Molla Nasreddin: The Making of a Modern Trickster (1906-1911)

Author: Janet Afary and Kamran Afary
 

Molla Nasreddin, the groundbreaking weekly magazine edited by Jalil Mohammadgholizadeh, was one of the most influential publications shaping Constitutionalist thought. Published in Azerbaijani Turkish in Tbilisi—then part of Tsarist Russia, now the capital of Georgia—it quickly captured the attention of parts of the Islamic world and was met with particular enthusiasm in Iran.

The book Molla Nasreddin: The Making of a Modern Trickster investigates the reasons behind the journal’s remarkable success, attributing it primarily to its artful reinterpretation of folktales deeply rooted in popular culture. According to the authors, this distinctive literary approach enabled anti-colonial and reformist discourse, closely aligned with the ideals of the Social Democrats, to find its way into coffeehouses and the everyday speech of ordinary people. The book explores on the one hand the full artistic scope of the magazine, including its caricatures, poetry, and stories, and, on the other, narrates the era and the people who were both its creators and its readers.

The History of Modern Iran
 

Author: Abbas Amanat

 

While most historical accounts mark the beginning of Iran’s encounter with the modern West at the moment when Abbas Mirza faced the modernized army of the Russian Tsar, the author pushes this starting point back by three centuries—to the Battle of Chaldiran (1514), where Safavid swords met Ottoman cannons. Shifting this origin story from the Qajar to the Safavid era is, without doubt, a provocative move, especially since, in the 16th century, the language of modernity had not yet entered Iranian discourse.

Yet what justifies this historical reorientation is the view that modern transformations often precede the invention of terms to name them. With this in mind, we are permitted, indeed compelled, to search for the roots of modernity in the Safavid period, where its traces can be discerned across the cultural, military, economic, and political landscapes. With this perspective on the meaning of “modern,” the book continues its examination of Iranian history—tracing the unfolding of modernity from the Safavid era through the Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties and into the period of the Islamic Republic.