Rich, absorbing, and exotic--City of Lies travels up and down Vali Asr Street, Tehran's pulsing thoroughfare, from the lavish shopping malls of Tajrish through the smog that lingers over the alleyways and bazaars of the city's southern districts. Ramita Navai gives voice to ordinary Iranians forced to live extraordinary lives: the porn star, the aging socialite, the assassin and enemy of the state who ends up working for the Republic, the dutiful housewife who files for divorce, and the old-time thug running a gambling den. In today's Tehran, intrigues abound and survival depends on an intricate network of falsehoods: mullahs visit prostitutes, local mosques train barely pubescent boys in crowd control tactics, and cosmetic surgeons promise to restore girls' virginity. Navai paints an intimate portrait of those discreet recesses in a city where the difference between modesty and profanity, loyalty and betrayal, honor and disgrace is often no more than the believability of a lie.
- ISBN10 1610395190
- ISBN13 9781610395199
- Publish Date 2 September 2014 (first published 8 May 2014)
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Publish Country US
- Publisher INGRAM PUBLISHER SERVICES US
- Imprint PublicAffairs,U.S.
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 320
- Language English