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Stolen Revolution

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What to expect

The moving, riveting and immersive story of six Iranians who, together, lived the entire arc of modern Iranian history: the promise of the 1979 revolution, its betrayal by the Islamic mafia state and a people’s undying spirit of resistance.

Fuelled by Iranians’ dreams of social justice and political freedom, the 1979 revolution swept aside the shah’s ailing, repressive monarchy. But in its place the revolution’s leader Ayatollah Khomeini and his acolytes built a system that served his narrow Islamic fundamentalist faction and worsened every failing and brutality that had existed under the shah. Award-winning journalists Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati tell the entwined stories of six Iranians, providing a powerful new lens on Iran’s recent history in all its bitter twists and stubborn hope:

• Mehdi Karroubi: a devotee of Khomeini, he rose to the heights of power on the wave of the revolution, before being cast out of its inner circle.

• Hila Sedighi: a young activist, who gave voice through her poetry to her peers’ hopes during the reform years and ultimately immortalised their shattered dreams.

• Amir Moghadam: an ambitious government bureaucrat, who witnessed corruption and graft on a scale that impelled him to take enormous risks to expose the truth.

• Said Rahmani: a successful global tech entrepreneur who returned to Iran to spark a start-up boom in his native country, and encountered a ruthless security state that wanted his company for itself.

• Rozhin Yousefzadeh and Kosar Eftekhari: both born in the 1990s, they escaped their gendered destinies by leaving their hometowns for Tehran, where they joined a mass movement that confronted a ferocious state apparatus: the Woman Life Freedom protests. Each paid an enormous price.

Through vivid and original reporting, Stolen Revolution offers a compulsively readable new story of Iran, centring ordinary Iranians’ lives, whilst providing a visceral understanding of how life is actually lived under a modern authoritarian state. This is a harrowing story of power, corruption and greed – and those brave individuals who fought back.

'Rare and riveting . . . Powerful personal stories are woven together to provide new insight and understanding' LYSE DOUCET

‘A must-read for anyone seeking an honest appraisal of revolutionary Iran and the bloody twists and turns of its theocratic regime . . . compulsively readable . . . unputdownable’ JON LEE ANDERSON

‘So timely, and so apposite . . . In the tradition of John Hersey’s classic Hiroshima, Sharafedin and Torbati tell the story of modern Iran in a compelling and accessible way. Essential reading' LINDSEY HILSUM, author of I BROUGHT THE WAR WITH ME

© Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critics Review

This account of the Islamic Republic and its discontents told via six contrasting lives should be required reading . . . Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati’s powerful history of the Islamic republic is a badly needed corrective because it is at once an engrossing story and a balanced, meticulously researched primer on modern Iran (the clearest I’ve ever read) . . . it is dramatic, personal and often heartbreaking
Guardian
A blistering takedown of the Islamic Republic, revealing the structural rot on which it was built and the courage of those who resist it . . . The devastating sections on Kosar Eftekhari and Rozhin Yousefzadeh will move some readers to tears . . . Stolen Revolution is a genuinely remarkable achievement
The Times
I'd recommend Stolen Revolution by the journalists Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati, which tracks the lives of six Iranians, including one major political figure, to reveal how the Islamic regime lost legitimacy. It's a book about courage, revolt and, above all, disappointment
Financial Times
Outstanding . . . a brilliant and compelling tapestry of humanity and history using the stories of six Iranians, researched in 130 interviews . . . The inside story of Iranian politics is little known and often viewed with rose-tinted blinkers by sympathetic Westerners. Stolen Revolution tells it clear-sightedly and grippingly
New Statesman
The definitive inside story of how the ideals behind Iran's revolution were subverted and crushed - and of the brave Iranians who still keep those dreams alive
Catherine Belton, author of PUTIN'S PEOPLE
A deeply reported and quietly devastating account of half a century of upheaval in the country. The result is one of the most perceptive books on modern Iran in years . . . There are scenes of striking intimacy . . . If the first half of Stolen Revolution traces the consolidation of power, the second turns to the persistence of resistance
New York Times
A rare and riveting chronicle of a major political story of our time. Powerful personal stories are woven together to provide new insight and understanding. Well-researched, well-written and well worth reading
Lyse Doucet
Brilliant . . . We can't recommend it highly enough
Comment is Freed
This is the best book I've read on the topic . . . You can see the scale of the challenge facing the Iranian people in overcoming the Islamic Republic. Stolen Revolution should be required reading
Literary Review
Stolen Revolution is a must-read for anyone seeking an honest appraisal of revolutionary Iran and the bloody twists and turns of its theocratic regime. By narrating Iran’s convulsive modern history through the lives of six Iranians in clear prose and engaging personal detail, authors Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati have turned a potentially complex story into one that is compulsively readable, and they deserve high praise for this achievement. I found Stolen Revolution unputdownable, and cannot recommend it highly enough
Jon Lee Anderson
Author Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati
Narrator Nikki Massoud
Duration 16 hours and 42 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781405972727
Format Audiobook
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Genre Collected biographies, Middle Eastern history, Political control and freedoms, Revolutionary groups and movements, True stories: general
Availability AU, GB, IE

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