Black on Black: Iran Revisited

Short-listed for the Thomas Cook/The Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award 2001

'If I had to choose a colour to charcterise Iran, I would choose black: the colour worn by the women and the men, the colour of the crepe that decorates the streets and houses during religious celebrations, the colour of the country's riches: oil and caviar.'

Ana Briongos first travelled to Iran in the 1960s. She returned in the early 1970s to study Persian at the University of Tehran and has continued to return to this country of contradictions ever since. But Black on Black is not so much her own story as that of her friends and acquaintances. Ultimately, all her tales are about coming to terms with the consequences of the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Ana describes the everyday life of the people she meets and visits. These quiet, domestic moments build, like the pieces of mosaic, into an intricate portrait of a country where things are not always as they appear. With a disarming gentleness, Ana reveals a country far more complex - both now and in its 'liberal' days under the Shah - than television soundbites have led us to believe.