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Vol. 79/No. 23 June 22, 2015
Titles on revolutionary politics
released at Tehran book fair
BY CATHARINA TIRSÉN
TEHRAN, Iran — The 28th Tehran International Book Fair opened May 6 in
the gigantic Mosalla Grand Mosque here under the motto, “Reading:
Dialogue with the World.” For 10 days the prayer halls are transformed
into a labyrinth of Iranian publishers. On a mezzanine you can also find
stands of publishers from France and Japan, as well as Armenia, Bosnia,
Mexico and other countries.
Hundreds of thousands of people visit the fair, which is free of charge,
in order to browse books from hundreds of publishers, enjoy good
discounts and look for special titles for their studies.
Three pavilions are set aside for international publishers. Pathfinder
Press books have been sold at the fair since 1992. A May 14 dispatch by
the semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported that the Pathfinder stand
this year displayed “documentary works on the Communist International,
Fourth International and Socialist Workers Party, writings of Fidel
Castro, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X and other American and international
leftist leaders, as well as historical and analytical works on a variety
of national and international political issues.”
Visitors come to the Tehran book fair from all over Iran. A man from
Kurdistan said he had come this year hoping to find more international
publishers “because of the negotiations and the prospects of easing the
sanctions,” referring to talks between the Iranian and U.S. and European
governments. He got an issue of the Marxist magazine New International
featuring “Our Politics Start with the World” by Jack Barnes, a leader
of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States.
A Farsi translation of this work was released at this year’s fair by the
Iranian publisher Talaye Porsoo, which translates and sells many
Pathfinder titles. Reviewing the book May 17, a writer for the Iran Book
News Agency said that Two Worlds at Night: The Legacy of Imperialism and
the Road to Social and Cultural Advance — the book’s title in Farsi —
gives evidence that poverty and underdevelopment in Africa, the Middle
East and much of Asia and the Americas “are a consequence of the
workings of capitalism on a world scale.”
The reviewer notes Barnes’ explanation that more than a third of the
world’s population has no access to modern energy, and says the SWP
leader emphasizes the political fight to enable working people worldwide
to use resources and technology to close the gap between the
industrially advanced and semicolonial countries.
A young worker from Afghanistan was one of many people who bought
collections of speeches by Malcolm X, a revolutionary leader of Blacks
and other working people in the U.S. in the 1960s. A number of people
who came by Pathfinder’s booth also picked up Malcolm X, Black
Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by Barnes. One was especially
interested after reading Malcolm’s explanation in that book of why he
stopped describing his political course as Black nationalism after
meeting “true revolutionaries” in Africa and elsewhere who were white.
Pathfinder’s titles on the fight for women’s emancipation were popular,
as well as books by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and other leaders of the
socialist revolution in Cuba. The Pathfinder booth featured Voices From
Prison, I Will Die the Way I’ve Lived and Absolved by Solidarity — three
recent books about five Cuban revolutionaries who spent years in
Washington’s prisons for their actions in defense of the Cuban
Revolution. Last December the final three of them returned to a hero’s
welcome in Cuba.
In addition to Two Worlds at Night, Talaye Porsoo presented three new
translations of Pathfinder books at the fair, including Pages from
History: Women and Revolution by Mary-Alice Waters and Evelyn Reed and
volume 3 of the Farsi edition of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the
Road to Workers Power. Its best sellers included The Communist Manifesto
by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and Socialism and Man in Cuba by Guevara.
A bookstore in Kurdistan bought 225 Talaye Porsoo books during the
event. And a bookseller from Afghanistan told the booth’s staff he had
recently bought through a commercial distributor 100 copies each of
Socialism and Man in Cuba and Barnes’ The Changing Face of U.S. Politics.
Golâzin, another Iranian publisher that translates and sells Pathfinder
titles in Farsi, displayed those books again this year, including
Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitation of Women; Che Guevara Speaks;
and Problems of Women’s Liberation.
Related articles:
Tehran sends troops to back Syria’s Assad as Kurds battle Islamic State
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