Interestingly written and brimful of insights, this book still left me with mixed feelings. I tried to learn more about the Iranians and learn i did in spades, but what was it that i learned? Probably the outcome of reading the book could be best illustrated by comments of my fellow travelers, who said that my inquisitive questions on terrorism, sexual and familial misfortunes, regime's abuses etc., with which i pestered my hospitable and eager to please Iranian hosts, made them wince.

Surely i got a better understanding of all those unsavory things, but i have a feeling that i was deprived of 80% sunny percents of the Iranians' daily lives. And the impression i got of the society is very skewed. I recognize this from my own experience of talking to foreigners in Russia, who come wide-eyed, well-versed in country's multiple shortcomings, and thoroughly suspicious. Yes, maybe 100% of what they read is true, but it's somehow apparent that i live in a parallel world, mostly blissfully unscathed by all these demonic stories, fed to hapless foreigners. Question is -whose life is real then?

Brilliant, saddening and at times grisly. How she did her research is a mystery, going down to details of how a teenager felt between her legs, what a now dead gangster did with his wife in bed. But it's a dramatic read and echos of my own experience in Teheran suggest that it's pretty authentic. Corruption and abuse of power haunt the whole Middle East, but this seems about the worst in that the regime gets inside the heads of the population, not by surveillance or hi-tech but by commandeering their spiritual beliefs. ( )

A series of profiles of people living and working in modern Tehran and how they navigate life under a theocratic regime. Ramita Navai writes with journalistic detachment, but this is more creative nonfiction than it is straight reportage.

In the "Sources" section at the end of the book, Navai reveals that not only have some details been changed to protect her subjects—understandable and indeed advisable in order to protect them from a repressive regime—but that some of these subjects are in fact composites based on second- or third-hand information. For me, this cast a bit of a retrospective pall on the book. Since there's no way of knowing what's fiction(alised) and what "really" happened, there's no way of knowing to what extent Navai invented elements specifically to grab the reader more. Some of the profiles are fairly pulpy, and that plus the sometimes too-neat endings make me suspicious as to what extent City of Lies was tailored to fit the preconceptions that Western armchair cultural tourists have of Iran.

Still worth the read, I think, but with that grain-of-salt caveat. ( )

> Par K. Moussou, P. Frey, O. de Lamberterie (Elle) : Les 39 meilleurs livre de poche du moment
6 juin 2018 - Direction l’Iran avec ce roman de Ramita Navai. On y suit le quotidien de Dariush, terroriste repenti, Farideh, jeune femme divorcée, Bijan, un trafiquant d’armes, Leyla, actrice porno… et on y découvre une jeunesse frustrée et moderne, maligne et étouffée. Un livre à la limite du reportage.
—Khadija Moussou

> Vivre et mentir à Téhéran, roman choral de Ramita Navai, est une collection d'histoires vraies dont le héros est le mensonge. Afin de protéger l'identité des personnes qui ont témoigné en racontant leur vie et celle de leurs proches, l'auteure transforme, adapte, ment à sa manière avec pour objectif de faire accéder le lecteur à une vérité plurielle, celle de chaque personnage, qu'il soit membre d'une organisation terroriste, mère de famille traditionaliste, adolescent homosexuel engagé dans la milice ou prostituée repentie...
Cécile Dutheil de la Rochère, sa traductrice en français, se plie à tous les caprices du texte. Elle se coule dans les descriptions somptueuses de Téhéran - dont le lecteur ne peut que tomber amoureux -, syncope le parler moderne et américanisé des jeunes branchés, et tisse les discours plus ou moins ésotériques, plus ou moins manipulateurs, livrés par des mollahs en tout genre. Il faut une grande énergie et une palette très étendue pour pouvoir embrasser, en traduction, les antagonismes qui écartèlent ce texte, à l'image de cette ville où règne une tension effroyable entre répression sexuelle et pornographie, tendresse fraternelle et violence fratricide, fascination de l'étranger et haine de l'autre.
—(Agnès Desarthe - Le Monde du 19 février 2015)

> Son livre est un portrait de Téhéran et des Téhéranais d'aujourd'hui. Il raconte la vie sous une dictature religieuse. Les gens vivent et s'arrangent comme ils peuvent. Il arrive même que certains prospèrent. Mais tous mentent, d'où le titre du livre : Vivre et mentir à Téhéran...
Et, partout, l'attachement des Téhéranais à leur ville, chaleureuse solidaire, indiscrète, parfois mortifère. C'est étonnant, souvent drôle, tragique, parfois romanesque. Farideh est une des figures les plus touchantes du livre, une bourgeoise humaniste et laïque, que tout oppose au régime, mais qui n'arrive pas à quitter le pays.
—(Natalie Levisalles - Libération du 23 avril 2015)

Read this as I was preparing for a trip to Iran. Before traveling to Iran I questioned whether the duplicity she illustrates through various life stories was really so different than any other public vs private facade. After spending time there, I truly appreciate her insight and storytelling. ( )