The Memoirs of a Newsdealer

Mahmood Fazeli Mahmood Fazeli

2015-7-25

 “The Memoirs of a Newsdealer” includes the memories of the oldest newsdealer of Iran, Mohammad Ebrahim Ranjbar. He was born in 1928 in Mazandaran province and came to Tehran in 1937. Two neighboring newsdealers helped him to start his work. He is 86 and holds the record of the oldest newsdealer in Iran. His memories contain the historical events in Iran since 1920 coup to Islamic Revolution in 1978. This book contains intact information about Iranian situation during a period of 50 years.

Such books are valuable resources for historiography of commonalty and masses of people, considering their method of memory telling. You can find the evolution trend of the press in the recent decades of Iran. The book has a new and unique look to the press and its margins. It is the description of a layman’s look to the events and incidents in a certain period. The writer has a new narration of the common people points of views and problems of publication and distribution of the press in those periods. Mohammad Ebrahim Ranjbar Amiri narrates, “One day I went to Ettelaat organization to see one of my friends 14 years ago. When I was passing along a room a clergyman got close and welcomed me and asked what I am searching for. I explained that one of my friends worked there and I was myself a newsdealer too. He asked if I had any memory from 19 August 1953. To him I replied very much and I started to recite him my memories. He asked someone to write down what I told. I turned into a writer from that day. And the result was “The Memoirs of a Newsdealer”. Book is the only thing which may remain from someone in this world, exactly for this reason I gathered my memories in a book”.

The oldest newsdealer of Iran explains, “I started my work in newspaper distribution alley in Lalehzar Street in 1937. This alley’s real name was Bahar but so many newspapers were distributed there, that it was called newspaper distribution alley. Then I worked for a newsdealer and I got 1 Rial a day, however, my wage increased after August 1941. The main news papers were the afternoon newspaper of Ettelaat and later newspapers like Tajadod Iran, Iran, Mehr Iran and Hayat magazine were published. As I started my work the number of newspapers increased and my work flourished”.

He recalls the transportation of newspapers on foot and says, “We had no vehicle and took the newspapers on foot. Tehran was not so big in those days. It was desert from Darvazeh Dowlat upward. Amjadieh Pool in Shiroudi Stadium, which is now in the middle of the city, was 2 kilometers far from the city then. Sometimes we took the newspapers by donkey. There were only 18 newsdealer in Tehran. There were just 4 or 5 main streets in Tehran, one was Sepah Street. The other was Shah Street. There were Saadi, Ferdowsi, Lalehzar, Naser-khosrow, Bouzarjomehri and Shoosh Streets too. I had not kiosk then and I took the newspapers by hand and sold them through a lot of jiving and flattering”.