31 Jul 2014

Modern day life in Tehran with Ramita Navai

From Nine To Noon, 10:05 am on 31 July 2014

Ramita Navai supplied by HachetteRamita Navai is a freelance British-Iranian journalist and writer. She has worked as a reporter for Channel 4's foreign affairs series, Unreported World.

She has reported from over 30 different countries, including Sudan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Nigeria, El Salvador and Zimbabwe. She was awarded an EMMY for her undercover report from Syria. She has also worked as a journalist for the United Nations in Pakistan, northern Iraq and Iran, and was the Tehran correspondent for The Times from 2003 to 2006.

Her first book, City of LiesLove, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran (published by Hachette NZ) was awarded the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize for Non-Fiction in 2012. It is based on interviews and research Navai undertook after she returned to the city of her birth to look at the day to day lives of people living there. The result is a snapshot of modern day Tehran, and an exploration of what is going on in the underbelly of the city. Among the characters in the book are a porn star, an assassin, and a police officer undergoing a sex change.

Ramita Navai talks to Lynn Freeman.