Abstract
The US Ambassador's Mission to Iran has sold 300,000 copies; the Shah's book is banned; a biography of Robespierre is popular but the bestseller is Orwell's Animal Farm. Interest in Marxism and religion is waning, but banned Iranian writers flourish in samizdat.
The following article was written for the first issue of Kayhan, an émigré Persian language weekly first published in London on 11 June. Kayhan was originally founded as an independent daily in Tehran in 1941 and became the largest circulation newspaper in Iran. In September 1979 the Iranian revolutionary authorities took it over and now it is run by the Foundation of the Disinherited, an official organisation. Kayhan's former proprietor and editors left the country and are now responsible for the London Kayhan.
The article was written by one of its correspondents in Tehran who prefers to remain anonymous.