Exiled theater director Nasser Rahmaninejad describes his fraught creative life caught between two great upheavals in Iran’s modern history in A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran. In Western perception, the Iranian Revolution, which this year has its 40th anniversary, often overshadows the decades of Iran’s modern history that preceded it. This forthcoming memoir fills this gap. The title derives from a time of torture after being arrested by the SAVAK (secret police) and spending years in the notorious Evin Prison, when interrogators ordered him to write everything about his activities. To avoid revealing anything incriminating he wrote about all his artistic passions, beginning, “Here it is—this is my life! I am an artist! A man of the theater!”
All A Man of the Theater events have been suspended until further notice. The book is still available for purchase online at nyupress.org.