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Hooman Majd - Minister without Portfolio, Inbunden

Inbunden, Engelska, 2025

Minister without Portfolio

Memoir of a Reluctant Exile

Av Hooman Majd

359 kr

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Beskrivning
From the author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ comes a globe-spanning memoir of identity, exile, and reinvention.In many ways, Hooman Majd has led a charmed life: the son of a high-ranking diplomat in pre-Revolutionary Iran, he grew up in the upper echelons of Iranian society and in cosmopolitan diplomatic enclaves in San Francisco, London, and Washington, DC. In early adulthood, after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolution in 1979, Majd sold real estate to fellow Iranian exiles in Beverly Hills, tried his hand at writing, and found his way to the orbit of Chris Blackwell, the impresario of Island Records and mastermind behind the careers of Bob Marley & the Wailers, U2, and other global superstars. After rising through the ranks—and sometimes, but not always, the charts—Majd went on to write three influential books about his homeland and served as a consultant and contributor to NBC News on Iran. Yet, for all this authority and access, Majd could never truly call any place “home.”As he recounts in his open-hearted memoir Minister without Portfolio—named for the tongue-in-cheek title Blackwell bestowed on him—Hooman Majd was always shadowed by a sense of precarity, even as he bantered with ambassadors’ wives at smoke-filled soirees or traded gossip with Grace Jones and Dennis Hopper at Goldeneye, Blackwell’s Jamaican estate and the former home of Ian Fleming. Majd had seen first-hand the havoc wrought on his family—and so many others—by the Iranian revolution. All his life, he has been questioned, frisked, or even threatened at points of entry. Though he has risked several return trips to Iran, today, officially, he can never go back. How can you build an identity when no place will claim you as its own?Told with grace, insight, and longing—and filled with riotous, sometimes shocking portraits of larger-than-life personalities and illuminating insights about the entanglements between Iran and the West—Minister without Portfolio is a trenchant memoir of belonging nowhere and everywhere at once.
Produktinformation
  • Utgivningsdatum: 2025-11-13
  • Mått: 159 x 238 x 30 mm
  • Vikt: 562 g
  • Format: Inbunden
  • Språk: Engelska
  • Antal sidor: 275
  • Förlag: ZE Books
  • ISBN: 9798988670063
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Mer information

Hooman Majd is an author and writer based in New York, and a contributor at NBC News. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, Financial Times, and Interview, among others. Majd is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Ayatollah Begs to Differ (Doubleday, 2008) and The Ayatollahs’ Democracy (Norton, 2010). His most recent book on Iran, The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay, was published by Doubleday in 2013. Majd has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Charlie Rose, NBC News, and many others, and on numerous NPR programs.

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Praise for Minister without Portfolio:“What a stunning book Hooman Majd’s latest, Minister without Portfolio, is! . . . Every time I read his work I feel starstruck all over. This one will do it to you times a million—not only is it another amazing look at Iran & Iranian America and Iranian-American consciousness over the decades, but it is so intimate. You learn so much about Hooman and his wildly colorful life (lots of fun celeb gossip in this one too). The man is brilliant but also iconic & glamorous, what can we say!”—Porochista KhakpourPraise for The Ayatollah Begs to Differ:“Perhaps the best book yet written on the contradictions of contemporary Iran . . . It captures like no book in recent memory the ethos of the country, in elegant and precise prose.”—Reza Aslan, Los Angeles Times“Illuminating . . . Captivating . . . A discerning guide to a complex country.”—Joseph Richard Preville, The Christian Science Monitor“Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the paradox that is Iran (as well as America) in the post-Bush world.”—GQ“In this delightful book, Hooman Majd, a gifted storyteller, takes us on a tour of his own private Persia, which is also the Iran of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The results are illuminating, humorous, sobering, and ultimately reassuring.”—Jon Lee Anderson“Great books can be bridges too, and a prime proof of this is Iranian author Hooman Majd’s wonderfully informed and enlightening new book, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran . . . He writes elegantly about the art of ta’arouf, the polite dance of self-deprecation—a kind of one-downmanship—that dominates social interactions. He expertly dissects Iran’s superiority/inferiority complex, born of centuries of manipulation by the West and a stunted nationalism . . . A refreshing and mind-opening book, a nuanced and informed portrait of one of our most misunderstood global neighbors.”—Don George, National Geographic Traveler, Book of the Month“Profound in insight . . . Hooman Majd’s delightfully unclassifiable book, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ [is] part travelogue, part reminiscence, and shifting between bemusement, grudging respect, and despair . . . While blithely exposing hypocrisies and paradoxes, Majd does not spare the Islamic Republic’s critics, either.”—Max Rodenbeck, The New York Review of Books“The book is particularly strong on class and social identity in the maturing Iranian revolution . . . He is also very strong on the relationships among Shiite theology, history, and contemporary Iranian culture, both secular and religious. What makes the book urgent now, however, is its peculiar angle of vision . . . His carefully observed case against the assumptions of the regime-change crowd in the West is a very important contribution; one hopes that American policymakers will take the time to absorb this book.”—Steve Coll, The New YorkerPraise for The Ayatollahs’ Democracy:“Majd offers a nimble take on Iran’s fraught political landscape . . . Majd, an Iranian diplomat’s son who was largely educated in America, has impeccable connections and is able to infiltrate the official and nonofficial camps fluidly.”—Kirkus Reviews“Intriguing . . . His books are worth reading because they offer acute, almost ‘insider’ analyses of Iranian policies and intra-regime rivalries.”—Roland Elliott Brown, The Guardian

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