Interview: "Truth Be Told"

"Publication of the book worried everyone", said the author of "Truth be Told" about his book. Ahmad Talebinejad, director, literati and film critic, has recently written a book which tells the stories and happenings behind Iran's film industry.

Anti-Shah Struggles by Iranian Overseas Student

The first volume of the history of struggles by overseas students under the title of "The Association of Islamic Communities of Students in Europe (1965-1981) was published in 2007 and its second volume was released in 2009 by Mojtaba Baghernejad. The work's publication sparked a lot of attention in communities relevant to the Islamic Revolution. Recently, its third volume has been released in the market with numerous documents and pictures enclosed.

The Practitioners Speak on Oral History (1)

Allison Penner: My name is Allison Penner. I’m at Columbia University in New York, New York with Ron Grele. The date is June 15th 2012, and we are doing an interview on the practices of oral history and Ron’s experience with that. So I guess just to get started here, what attracted you to oral history? How did you become an oral historian?

Holly War Aid Worker:

Jamaran- Zohreh Rezayi: “Tahereh Naghi-yi” is a teacher and social activist. It was in women’s social gatherings that I learned about her active participation in war as a photographer and aid worker. Her friends said that she has a lot of memories and uses her mental capacity as a teacher and keen mind in mathematics to preserve them. She has never told her story for the media and is now involved in peaceful activities; however she agreed to an interview with Jamaran and talked about her efforts to save lives of warriors who, she believes, “teased death with their unprecedented mental capacity.”

Sohrab, the All Alone

Sohrab Sepehri, one of Iran's most prominent poets in the contemporary era, spent at least two or three months a year in his birthplace, Kashan, at Café Sharbati. Seifollah Abbasi Moqaddam was a waiter who worked in the café when Sohrab spent his days in his hangout in the west-central city in the 60s. During his stay, Seifollah catered for Sohrab and enjoyed his company. Sohrab even did him a painting which Seifollah has preserved over the years. What follows is an interview with Seifollah, now a diner owner in Kashan, about those days. His recollections are valuable so far as they are pure and unfiltered, and reflect Sohrab's personality and life as a poet and a painter who lived alone and no one knew him in the city.

Naser Palangi’s Interview with Mehr

I made a promise to combatants of martyr JahanAra to paint their portrait/I decided to stay and picture the war “You are crazy! The city is full of mines, it is nothing but ruins, it is dangerous”; these are what the Governor of Khoramshahr told the young painter but he returned to Khormashahr with importunity to fulfill his promise to the combatants and paint their image on the wall of Khormashahr’s mosque. Mehr News Agency – Culture and Art Group: groves, sultry of south, bomb explosion and firing mortars ….design….picture….barrage… “23 year old young man had two choices, he could either return or to stay and he stayed” says the painter.

Interview with Commander Golali Babaei

Golali Babaei speaks about memory writing of war. "Memories of the Sacred Defense days are useful for the betterment of the society and fight against social issues, and can be used to show people how to live a better life." Every year Iran celebrates September 22-29 as the Sacred Defense Week which begins with the anniversary of Iraqi forces attacking Iran borders on September 22 1980 and ends with the anniversary of braking the seize of Abadan on September 29 1982. The history of the 8-year Iraq-imposed war on Iran is full of analyses, interpretations, memories and stories which could be heard from everyone witnessed the crisis. However, when heard from war experts and military commanders of that era, the history of the war and the way things happened are much more precise and well-founded.

Q&A with oral historian Sara Wood

The stories and history surrounding Southern food are just as colorful and diverse as the food itself. The Southern Foodways Alliance collects stories from across the region and celebrates the contributions of countless classes, races and ethnicities on Southern cuisine. Based in Wilmington, N.C., Sara Wood works as an oral historian with the SFA. The Daily Tar Heel sat down with Wood to find out more about her research and what she has learned from working in the South.

Good Will Hunting: An Oral History

Fifteen years after the release of the movie that made them stars, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck—along with the rest of the cast and crew—reflect in their own words on how a long-shot film by two unknowns became one of Hollywood's biggest success stories.

On the crucial examination of a phenomenon

As one of the most striking features of journalism, reports on war have always been appealing to readers. In the interview that follow, Hedayatollah Behboudi, a senior journalist of war, maintains that it is a necessity for the genre to be scrutinized.