If you want to know the hangout of secular intellectual circles, one of its active centers is now known as “Book City”; An institution where some secular figures such as “Ali Mirzaei” (director in charge of Negah Nou quarterly) holds his book launch meeting, or secular translators such as “Ezzatullah Foladvand” attend its meetings and when on the Internet You search to see the latest translation activities of revisionist books or works of secular humanities, you go to “City of Books” conferences.
There have always been various news about “Book City” and especially the launch ceremony of its books, and there have been different judgments about the performance of this great cultural complex that has different branches in Tehran and other cities. Therefore, the report service of “Kihan Newspaper” decided to review the short history of the formation of “Book City” and its performance, especially during the past 8 years, until a young man enters “Niavaran Book City” and accompanied by the sounds of music. Western moderns go through the bookshelves to know what politics governs this collection. Although figures like “Mehdi Firouzan” (CEO of Shahr Kitab) have tried to portray a non-political face of their respective collection to the audience, but the specific arrangement of cultural products from the books of Ahmad Shamlou and Simin Behbahani to Ezzatullah Foladvand and even the works of authors Secular meanings such as goodness. R. K. D. and… cause the claim of the directors of Shahr Kitab based on a non-political approach to be seriously doubted. To represent the visible and hidden aspects of this institution, the following report is presented to the audience:
Whether we like it or not, studying per capita in Iran is not very attractive.
The high per capita study rate in any country shows the attention of that nation to the culture of reading books and the importance of the position of science and research.
However, due to the concern of improving Iran’s scientific status, this figure has not yet been able to meet the desired standards.
How to straighten the curved back of the head of study so that it finds a higher height to raise our head, has its own tools and methods, as if the city of books has prepared a calculation for it: One criticism, one answer!
The people of Farhang who are sitting on the upper floors of the central book store at the intersection of Dr. Shariati and Shahid Motahri streets and claim to be in a safe and peaceful place, have no attachment to place, time, and person, and read any book! It is the need of every human being; As soon as we call for an interview, they eagerly welcome us to give us an answer that weighs heavily on their hearts, without having to give us a logical and legal answer to the media that criticized them!
Apparently, the City of Books did not like the fact that our colleagues in other media wrote about them in such a way that I don’t know if I should call “City of Books” “City of Culture”, or because of “UNICEF” or “City of Farang”, but The elders of this beautiful, stylish, and clean city, no matter what they talked about and what they demanded, it was nothing but that firstly they have independence and secondly they have nothing to do with politics.
They seem to want to arrange a podium.
Journalist Hossein Qadiani says: Why none of them like to talk about their work relationship with the municipality. Why don’t the managers of Shahr Kitab accept when the mayor of Tehran announced Moesad’s promise to join the park behind the Shahr Kitab center building to this store and the news was spread in the media, well, everyone understands and you can’t deny this dependence. They deny everything.
Qadiani asks why there are a large number of books by Bashiriyeh and Soroush in the stores, but the books of personalities such as Javadi Ameli, Musa Najafi and
Mesbah Yazidis?
But really, why are the sales officials in the city-wide books not happy with such a confession.
This is the answer that the guardians of this city full of books must answer.
A good thing in Yemen, but!
The story started when some people decided to do something by obeying the orders of the wise leader of the revolution. Of course, a cultural action such as the establishment of chain stores in the city of books, whose blessing these days has gone beyond the borders of the capital and has included some other cities.
Book Fair, 2014
“The path of the visit of the leader of the revolution reached from the books of the exhibition to the hall of foreign books, but he did not want to visit and preferred to say how good it was that we could present our thoughts in the form of books in attractive ways, to the guardians of the matter. They should emphasize that they should put their thoughts together and find a solution to export more values. This is how a new development occurred in the supply of books.”
They are called the people responsible for the book city.
According to its managers, a non-profit and non-profit organization was registered in 1985, and Mr. Doa’i, Dr. Ajei, and Dr. Najafi started the book under the executive management of Engineer Anwar Shahr, and later two more people joined them.
Engineer Firouzan also became the CEO and has been able to survive and manage for eight years. The result of the efforts has been summarized to 34 branches in Tehran and 10 branches in the cities, which include Amol, Babol, Sari, Saveh, Rasht, Gorgan, Bandar Abbas, Urmia, Alborz, and Shahreri, and in appearance, it was a success for the cities. And they got less facilities.
What do the audience of the book city say?
Hosseinullah Vardi is a psychology student and we see him in Niavaran book store.
He is very fond of Book City and even though he says that he has not been able to visit other related stores, but this Book City is enough for him to close his door forever and go to Elkhebal Street to buy books.
Allah Vardi says about this: Although with the construction of the city of books, the supply of books has gone beyond the monopoly of the bookstores around the Revolution Square and stores in front of Tehran University, but the type of books offered in these stores is interesting.
He continues: There are few stalls of religious books limited to a few volumes of Qur’an interpretation and books about Imam Zaman (a.s.), Rouzah, the honors of Imam Hussain (a.s.) and the history of the Prophet of Islam (pbuh) and the age of unseen. it is possible. In addition, all the books are superficial and not useful for students. To the words of this young student, we should add this point that no matter how much he looks, we can find on the shelves of foreign novels works by Gabriel García Márquez and Paulo Coelho, and on the counter of Behbahani and Golshiri’s poems and sometimes the fugitives after the tumult of the 9th presidential election. Let’s see the republic. From Abdul Karim Soroush, Tahossein Bashiriyeh and any person you want.
A tour of the city’s stores will give you a more documented impression of the book that we have drawn.
City of Books, West Terminal of Tehran
Contrary to the size of the store, it has a small window. From the left side, when you enter, there are all kinds of stationery, sketchbooks, and stylish pencils, and of course, china, which has replaced the colored pencils of our school, with pencils that look more attractive than those that were so readily available at that time. It used to get black and we would mark the walls and carpets of the house to clean it, and if we were in our class, we would drag it on the bench to clean it again.
The store is very big and there does not seem to be an interesting balance between the size of the store and the amount of books. But stationery has become a shame of the store and has a good place above the Majlis.
On the right side of the store, after the cashier’s desk, there are bookshelves with limited titles; General psychology, philosophy, Iranian novel, foreign novel, educational, children.
– Can I help you?
– What books have the most audiences?
– Most of them are Iranian and foreign novels.
– Is that why Paulo Coelho and García Márquez are abundant here?
– Iranian novels have no shortage of customers, of course, superficial novels have the highest sales here. Of course, we are going to add two new shelves of law books.
Mohammadi is one of the book sellers in the city of Payane West of Tehran, who, like his other colleagues, tries to help, and after a short conversation, he allows me to go to the books and prepare a short list. Nutrition therapy, facial mask, first aid, yoga, ritual, and method of making friends, speaking, etc., such books, known as pocket-sized books, which can be found in every perfume shop today, are not on the shelves, but on the tables. The size is your obstacle so that if you close your eyes, your foot will get stuck on the table and you have to grab the table to get up from the ground and suddenly you feel the desired book in your hand.
The poems of some other poets are arranged on the tables.
Azadi Square – City of Kitab Al-Mahdi
Although this store has been closed for some time, the presence of works of Ataei’s poems and books of Soroush, Jalaipour and Bashirieh in the window of this store was another indication of the supply of special books.
It seems that the city of books was born so that the audience would be forced to choose books for which they have taken cultural bites! They have to read poems that some people think are allowed, but behind the curtain of publication permission, they have other unread poems.
It may be more effective to refer to one of Simin Behbahani’s words in emphasizing this statement:
“I was very pleased and gained self-confidence and my self-confidence increased! Because Mr. Obama is the representative of the great, civilized and educated nation of America, when the representative of this country likes my poem and reads it and gives importance to it, I will be very happy and I think we should be grateful to him! »
When Behbahani uttered these words, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, in his Nowruz message to the people of Iran, in a speech addressed to their few supporters and internal leaders, said: Iran’s government will not be able to shape the future by creating terror and suppressing the opposition. Although the times may seem dark, but I will be with you!
In the final part of his message, Obama read the English translation of Simin Behbahani’s poem.
We should ask why the books of such writers, who are favored by the enemies, are easily and in wide circulation among the books that people can get in book stores.
Intersection of Shariati and Motahri – Shahr Kitab Marzari
“Behind the Walls of Memory” by Bijan Torgh is presented in the showcase of the central book city. In addition to Albercamo’s “The Stranger” and “Misunderstanding”, Machiavelli’s “About Shahriar” and the book of Toggi’s memoirs have a lot to say.
Abdul Karim Soroush, Hossein Bashiriyeh and Hoshang Golshiri have occupied many shelves in Central Book City, in addition to all kinds of books by Garcia Marquez, Ahmed Shamlou and other such people.
– Madam, are these books licensed?
– Yes, we do not bring books without permission.
Mrs. Saeedzadeh, who is one of the book sellers here, says: We bring the books according to the needs of the audience. They order and if we don’t have it, we get it for them. Let us know, we will bring any book you want.
– But the author of some of these books whose line of thought has many flaws.
– Can the book have a problem? If you have any questions, you can ask the management. I am just a seller here.
Management is in the central office
– Elo, the central office of City of Book?
– Yes, who do you work with?
– I am calling from the newspaper office for an interview with the relevant manager.
– mobile. The extension of the dialogue was taken over by the manager and he immediately scheduled an interview for the same day.
It was predictable. When you have to wait at least a week for every interview, how can the city of books understand being late so soon?
“They wrote about us that our stores do not have the book Nooruddin Peser Iran. If their goal is to promote this book, there are other solutions!
Seyed Mohammadreza Imampour, the financial and administrative director of the city of Kitab, says this and picks the invoices one by one on the table and continues: Look, all these are factors that we bought on the 5th of April from Surah Mehr, the book of Noor al-Din son of Iran, to offer in our stores. After Eid, the stores still haven’t brought a book to criticize us in the media, why don’t we have the books of Nooruddin Son of Iran, which is the memoirs of a veteran, but we have the books of Bashiriyeh and Soroush?
When we ask him about the presence of certain people in the book, such as opponents of the regime, he says: From our point of view, first of all, licensed books are offered and we are the father and authority.
In response to the question why books of the regime’s enemies are offered in Book City, he says: We believe that all books should be presented so that if there is an answer or criticism, it will be proposed and answered! No book is chosen, which means that a certain book should not be here because of a certain tendency, but the opposite is true. If some of the books should not be licensed, we are not responsible.
