A 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. A 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.

Details

ISBN13: 9780241744048
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 496
Edition:
Publication Date: 11 Aug 2026
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 23.4(H)x15.3(L)x3.8(W)630
Weight (gm): 630

Author Biography

Bozorgmehr Sharafedin (Author) Bozorgmehr Sharafedin began his journalism career in Iran, rising to editor-in-chief of the most popular youth political magazine in the country. In 2008, he left Iran for the BBC in London. He moved to Reuters in 2015, where he shared a National Press Club Award. He joined the Persian-language news service Iran International in 2023. Yeganeh Torbati (Author) Yeganeh Torbati is an award-winning reporter at the New York Times with fifteen years of experience covering Iran, US national security, business and immigration. She has worked at the Washington Post, ProPublica, Reuters and the Baltimore Sun. She was part of a Reuters team that uncovered the financial empire controlled by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2013. The series received numerous awards, including the Gerald Loeb Award, the Overseas Press Club Award and the European Press Prize. Torbati was born in Oklahoma to Iranian immigrants.

Reviews

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 -- Dina Nayeri * 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 -- Justin Marozzi * The Times *
Two books I immensely enjoyed in recent months . . . 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 -- Roula Khalaf * 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 -- Simon Sebag Montefiore * 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 -- Reza Aslan * 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 -- Sam Freedman & Lawrence Freedman * Comment is Freed *
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
Rarely has a book been so timely, and so apposite. By chronicling the Iranian revolution through the lives of six Iranians – 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 for anyone who wants to understand the protests that broke out in January 2026, and the Islamic Republic’s resistance to the subsequent attacks by the US and Israel -- Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 News and author of I BROUGHT THE WAR WITH ME