Writers, Orhan Pamuk, Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie taking selfies, pre-iPhone with Pamuk’s new camera. PEN World Voices, Cooper Union, New York City, 2007.
Dispatches from a U.S. Tourist: Day of Ashura Qom, Iran
En route to Tehran from Isfahan, we drove a couple of hours to the holy city of Qom. The day of our visit happened to be the Day of Ashura, the remembrance of Imam Hussain Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
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Dispatches From a U.S. Tourist: Iran’s Greatest Asset? Its People
Iran. What it conjures in the American mind. When well meaning friends and family learned I was “vacationing” in Iran, they assumed I would be jailed or beheaded by ISIS or kidnapped by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. These western impressions could not be further from the reality. Continue reading “Dispatches From a U.S. Tourist: Iran’s Greatest Asset? Its People”