Ramita Navai

“Ramita Navai’s City of Lies is gripping, a dark, delicious unveiling of the secret decadent life of Islamic Tehran,deeply researched yet as exciting as a novel”

“The stories are beautiful, and they’re so well-detailed and nuanced”

“One of the world’s most exciting cities, as revealed by one of journalism’s most exciting women. Navai slips effortlessly into the boots of earthy, urban writer to tour Tehran’s ripped backsides in this intimate, grand guignol debut.
She transports us through the Iranian capital’s multiple personas with deft and knowing navigation: never short of love for even the lowliest of her fellow Tehranis. An intimate and devoted portrait, lifting a beautiful truth from a city masked in lies”

“Navai’s prose is startling ... Navai’s characters observe the wrecked beauty of the world around them. Through these observations, the book is elevated far above typical reportage. She picks up snatches of songs, poems, billboard propaganda and is quick to find the knife and turn the blade on the hypocrisy of the city she knows so well”

“This is an important book. A seamless literary tapestry that just happens to be true. Ramita Navai’s collection of stories are uniquely Iranian yet they will move, chill and delight even a reader indifferent to Persia”

“The sharp narrative style is brilliant and compelling. These are fascinating tales of ingenious survival and self-immolation. People will shoulder the weight of life regardless and in modern Tehran they have extra burdens to bend their backs. This is an amazing book. ”

“A talented writer, she quickly sucks us in with her first character ... Navai has a reporter’s eye for the telling detail… this is a timely and beautifully written insight into the lives of Tehranis”

“Read this if you want to know about life, love and death in Tehran. Ramita Navai has written a fascinating, unforgettable book about the unbreakable human spirit in one of the world’s great cities”

“Fast-paced and saturated with detail ...what she has done is extraordinary”

“This phenomenal work reads more like a collection of long-form journalism than a novel.Pacy and informative, it is an extraordinary insight into a country barely know - and often feared - by the West”

“Ramita Navai is a courageous reporter and a spellbinding storyteller. In City of Lies she has navigated with bravery and compassion the fault lines of fear and desire that lie behind the façade of modern Tehran. A remarkable book about what it means to live and love under tyranny”

“It is a masterpiece of true tales turned into rich, gripping, vivid narrative. The amazing aspect of the book is that Navai manages to transform every tale into exquisitely detailed, terrible - but somehow wonderful ... There’s something cinematic about Navai’s style.Any one of these stories could be adapted for the big screen as a feature film ... The book is a caution, a tragedy and seduction”

“... she has broken taboos and laid bare what everyone knowsbut nobody mentions... She writes well and with fluency, in tight prose mercifully free of Persian hyperbole”

“A vivid, heartbreaking insight into survivalunder an oppressive regime.These are stories of characters we might see ourselves in,surviving in circumstances we can’t imagine”

“This gripping book is a mosaic of such glimpses into a very different world ... the chapters read like utterly compelling short tales, catapulting us imaginatively into the hearts and minds of people we feel we know”

“City of Lies is thoroughly researched and deeply evocative of place. Navai has a formidable talent as a storyteller.Her stories are by turns comical, intriguing and heart-wrenching.And although there’s a great deal of sadness in the stories she tells, she writes with obvious love for the wondrous variety of life in Tehran”

“... at the heart of City of Lies is some brilliant reporting. Persuading subjects to talk, even anonymously, is an achievement in a city where betrayal is commonplace and there is always someone watching”

“The stories are real. But they are written in a lively style that reads like a novel. Navai is impressive as a reporter, finding these characters and convincing them to share their stories. she also is an eloquent writer who uses her subjects to tell the larger tale of degradation of the Iranian culture”

“Navai writes with punch, providing an immediacy that makes for compulsive page-turning”

“A darling exposé of what really goes on under the noses of the morality police in this God-fearing city of 12 million… British-Iranian journalist Navai protects the real identities of her subjects, who are as engaging as characters of fiction and reveal, frankly, the charade that living under Sharia law has become since Iran’s Islamic Revolution… Navai offers sharply rendered portraits
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“[Navai’s] beautifully written book captures the pace, pulse and passions of day-to-day existence”

“It’s a well-paced, entertaining read. But its fascination mix of characters and its refusal to be distracted by Iran’s many external problems are what make City of Lies truly valuable”

“Navai, an award-winning journalist, examines a wide range of Tehranis in this collection of beautifully written profiles”

“Navai paints brilliantly insightful portraits of eight Tehranis”

“A carefully crafted non-fiction narrative told with the pace and tone of a novel”