Arash Hejazi

Who is Arash Hejazi?

Arash Hejazi, born 1971 in Tehran, Iran, is an Iranian novelist, fiction writer and translator of literary works from English and Portuguese into Persian. He is also an editor in Caravan Books Publishing House, and Book Fiesta Literary Magazine. He is a member of the Tehran Union of Publishers and Booksellers and was the managing editor of its journal, Sanat-e-Nashr, from 2006 to 2007. He was one of the nominees to receive the Freedom to Publish Prize held by International Publishers’ Association in 2006. He is also a novel writer, whose best known novel The Princess of the Land of Eternity was shortlisted for two major Iranian literary prizes and has sold more than 20,000 copies in Iran since its first publication in 2003. He in 2009 he received his MA in Publishing from Oxford Brookes University. His dissertation on censorship in Iran was published in the publishing journal Logos in 2011, and his memoir The Gaze of the Gazelle about growing up in Iran after the Islamic Revolution was published by Chicago University Press in 2011.

He was present at the death of Neda Agha-Soltan during the 2009 Iranian election protests, and was one of those who attempted to save her life. He lived in Tehran. Arash Hejazi is reported to have since fled Iran out of fear of government reprisals.