Azadeh Moaveni

Azadeh Moaveni is Tehran correspondent for TIME Magazine. She is the author of Lipstick Jihad (2005), and co-author of Iran Awakening (2006). She previously worked for the Los Angeles Times as a reporter covering the Iraq war, and its regional reverberations. Before joining the Times, she reported around the Middle East for TIME, covering Islamic militant groups, Arab media, political Shiism, Arab/Iranian youth culture, and the Iranian reform movement.

As one of the few American correspondents permitted to work continuously in Iran since 1999, Azadeh has reported extensively on youth culture and the student movement in the Islamic Republic. This focus inspired her first book, as well as her contributions to two anthologies, My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes (2006), and Let Me Tell You Where I�ve Been (2006). Her reporting has spanned from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, to Iran, and she speaks both Farsi and Arabic fluently.

Azadeh graduated with a bachelor�s degree in politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She received a Fulbright Fellowship to Egypt, and studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo. Azadeh grew up in northern California, and has lived in New York City, Cairo, and Beirut. She lives in Tehran.

Tell A Friend About This Artist

Lipstick Jihad

A young Iranian-American journalist returns to Tehran and discovers not only the oppressive and decadent life of her Iranian counterparts who have grown up since the revolution, but the pain of searching for a homeland that may not exist.
As far back as she can remember, Azadeh Moaveni has felt at odds with her tangled identity as an Iranian-American. In suburban America, Azadeh lived in two worlds. At home, she was the daughter of the Iranian exile community, serving tea, clinging to tradition, and dreaming of Tehran. Outside, she was a California girl who practiced yoga and listened to Madonna. For years, she ignored the tense standoff between her two cultures. But college magnified the clash between Iran and America, and after graduating, she moved to Iran as a journalist. This is the story of her search for identity, between two cultures cleaved apart by a violent history. It is also the story of Iran, a restive land lost in the twilight of its revolution.

Moaveni’s homecoming falls in the heady days of the country’s reform movement, when young people demonstrated in the streets and shouted for the Islamic regime to end. In these tumultuous times, she struggles to build a life in a dark country, wholly unlike the luminous, saffron and turquoise-tinted Iran of her imagination. As she leads us through the drug-soaked, underground parties of Tehran, into the hedonistic lives of young people desperate for change, Moaveni paints a rare portrait of Iran’s rebellious next generation. The landscape of her Tehran � ski slopes, fashion shows, malls and cafes � is populated by a cast of young people whose exuberance and despair brings the modern reality of Iran to vivid life.