Mage Publishers

01/31/2023

Privilege, along with innate gifts of intelligence and determination, shaped Houri Mostofi Moghadam in many ways, all vibrantly evident in Never Invisible.
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Drawn from her diaries, it documents the sweep of a long and eventful life as the world around her changed, sometimes for the better, sometimes bringing cruel setbacks.
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Houri was born into a lofty social stratum in Iran, a milieu of arranged marriages, overseas education for the young, financial comfort, and effective control of political power. Her father–described by her as “a learned man, hard-working, honest, and God-fearing”—was a prominent government official who served in a range of postings abroad and across Iran.
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Houri’s own exposure to another culture began when she entered a Franco-Persian kindergarten at the age of four. In later years, she would attend university (permitted for women only after reforms by Reza Shah in 1934), teach French and English in a top Iranian high school, spend time in America on a Fulbright grant, and run an important charitable organization with many international members.
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Always, however, the center of her life was her family–raising three children, running a large household, and supporting the career of her successful businessman husband.
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In mid-life, trouble arrived in many guises.
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Her marriage fell apart.
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She struggled with depression, moved abroad, bought an apartment in Paris, and, from a distance, watched in dismay as revolution broke out in Iran in 1978.
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In that upheaval, wrath and revenge was aimed chiefly at the upper class: One of her sisters and two uncles were imprisoned for a time.
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Houri did not return to Iran for 14 years.
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There, she found her house in ruins–- “nothing left of the life we lived there.” Five more times she went back to seek some restitution, always in vain. But that was her way–-a tireless fighter for what she saw as right, filling her life with activity and feeling, and brilliantly chronicling the flow of years in her diaries the whole while. Link to book in profile linktr.

11/03/2022

In 1805 Napoleon sent a delegation of military advisers to Fath ‘Ali Shah.
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They were charged with designing and reinforcing fortifications, training cavalry and infantry to European standards, and establishing a center of artillery production. He also sent geographers to reconnoiter the country, documenting routes that might be used by French and Persian land forces in a planned but never fulfilled invasion of India.
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The work of these officers has often been mentioned in passing but rarely has it been studied in detail.
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Although shifting geo-political forces ended the Napoleonic experiment, French involvement in the armed forces of ‘Abbas Mirza and his brother Mohammad ‘Ali Mirza continued.
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Despite the presence of English officers at Tabriz, the renegade Gaspard or J.B. Drouville headed to Iran, followed after the debacle at Waterloo by a handful of French officers who sought employment outside their native land.
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This book is the first detailed study of the French officers who worked in Iran between 1807 and 1826, the impact they had, the innovations they introduced, their trials, and their tribulations. 
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French military involvement in early Qajar Iran produced a host of stories deserving the attention of anyone with an interest in the seeds of military modernization in the Middle East, technology transfer in the 19th century, and the social, political, diplomatic, and military history of the Middle East in one of its most tumultuous phases.

10/14/2022

The Chinese invented papermaking, which by the 8th century had reached the Muslim world in Samarkand and Baghdad, and Spain by the 11th century.
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Much later at the end of the 18th century onwards, modern, industrial papermaking was developed by the Europeans. The History of Paper in Iran, 1501 to 1925 sets out for the reader the types of paper made in Iran during the Safavid and Qajar periods and the crucial role imported paper played in the country.
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The Iranian government attempted to introduce modern European paper production technology, first by sending students abroad to learn about this technology and then by purchasing equipment to set up a paper industry. However, during the 19th century, domestic Iranian paper production came under increasing pressure from paper imports, and the government abandoned its efforts to modernize the domestic paper industry.
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The authors, renowned scholar Willem Floor in collaboration with Amélie Couvrat Desvergnes a museum conservator of artworks on paper and books, identify and illustrate the watermarks and/or countermarks of the various paper producers and provide examples of the diversity of quality, composition, and nature of the different types of paper used by various strata of the Iranian society.
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Also provided are detailed import data, showing which country exported paper to Iran, via which routes, as well as their changing market position over time. Finally, the various end uses of paper, from books and farmans to paintings, and diverse packing and utilitarian paper are examined and, where possible, quantified data are presented. This book will reward scholars and general readers alike.
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Book link in profile linktr.ee. eBook interior in color.

10/11/2022

04/21/2022

Persians who travelled to the West during the Safavid and early Qajar period have received little attention. Persia Portrayed: Envoys to the West, 1600-1842 memorializes them in portraiture and pulls them back from historical obscurity. It brings together twenty-nine images—drawings, paintings, etchings, lithographs and even a silhouette—done in Boston, Geneva, London, Paris, Prague, Saratoga Springs, St. Petersburg, Vienna and Washington DC, between 1601 and 1842. In the days before photography, portraits commemorated their visits to distant capitals. Some of the subjects were members of Persia’s élite, some from modest backgrounds, and all were on a mission of one sort or another. Today, the images offer us rare glimpses of the dress, accoutrements and regalia that so distinguished the travelers. Subjects of fascination for both contemporary artists and a public intrigued by all things Persian, the sitters in these works left an indelible mark in the consciousness of Western observers, only a few of whom ever journeyed themselves to the Land of the Lion and the Sun. Link to book in profile.

04/13/2022

Shahrokh Meskoob was an Iranian writer and intellectual, who was born in Babol, on the Caspian coast, in 1924 and died in Paris in 2005. Imprisoned in the mid-1950s for leftist activities, he was forced to leave the country following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, after publishing two critical articles in the Ayandegan newspaper in Tehran. Meskoob’s literary analysis of the Shahnameh and the poetry of Hafez, and his book Iranian National Identity and the Persian Language, all translated into English, demonstrate his view that national identity meant cultural identity and that modernity in Iran should be based upon an understanding of the best of Iranian culture. This book celebrates Meskoob’s life and work in eight essays by prominent Iranian scholars and in a selection of facsimiles of his papers, now archived at Stanford University.

04/08/2022

Dust-Ali Khan “Mo`ayyer al-Mamalek” (1876–1966) throughout his long life, he kept journals of the rarefied and sometimes turbulent world in which he moved. Some of those records were incorporated by him into autobiography or descriptions of his grandfather’s court―its modes of governance, festivals, royal hunts, palaces and gardens, life in the harem, and much more. The Artist and the Shah includes 280 photographs from public archives and private collections. Most of the photographs are presented here for the first time in their proper context. Illuminated with the words of Dust-Ali Khan, they provide a uniquely intimate view of an era now long vanished. Link to book in profile.

06/02/2021

Another Birth and Other Poems—the best translations of Forugh’s poems—includes an introduction, letters, interviews, a timeline of Forugh's life and creative work, two essays analyzing her finest poems, and the Persian text of the poems on facing pages. Linktree to book in profile.

06/01/2021

One of the best contemporary Iranian poets translated by Dick Davis in a bilingual edition (see second slide). Linktree to book in profile.

05/31/2021

1000 years of Persian poetry by women translated by Dick Davis in a bilingual edition—brilliant

05/30/2021

Second and little known third parts of the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi brilliantly translated by Dick Davis and magnificently illustrated with Persian miniatures. (Linktree to books in profile)

05/28/2021

The Rebel Bandits of Tangestan is a deep dive into early-twentieth century history of an oft-neglected region of Iran and the Persian Gulf. It is a fascinating and well-researched account that reveals unknown details that will be rewarding to scholars and general readers alike. (Linktree to book in profile)