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Stolen Revolution

Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran
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Stolen Revolution

By: Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, Yeganeh Torbati
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Stolen Revolution follows the lives of six Iranians who, together, lived the entire arc of modern Iranian history: the promise of the 1979 revolution, its betrayal by forces of autocracy and a people’s undying spirit of resistance.

Fuelled by Iranians’ dreams of social justice and political freedom, the 1979 revolution swept aside the shah’s ailing, repressive monarchy. But the revolution’s leader Ayatollah Khomeini and his acolytes built a system in its place that served his narrow Islamic fundamentalist faction, and worsened every failing and brutality that had existed under the shah. Award-winning journalists Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati tell the entwined stories of six Iranians, providing a powerful new lens on Iran’s recent history in all its bitter twists and stubborn hope:

• Mehdi Karroubi: a devotee of Khomeini, he rose to the heights of power on the wave of the revolution, before being cast out of its inner circle.

• Hila Sedighi: a young activist, who gave voice through her poetry to her peers’ hopes during the reform years and ultimately immortalised their shattered dreams.

• Said Rahmani: a successful global tech entrepreneur who returned to Iran to spark a start-up boom in his native country, and encountered a ruthless security state that wanted his company for itself.

• Amir Moghadam: an ambitious government bureaucrat, who witnessed corruption and graft on a scale that impelled him to take enormous risks to expose the truth.

• Rozhin Yousefzadeh and Kosar Eftekhari: both born in the 1990s, they escaped their gendered destinies by leaving their hometowns for Tehran, where they joined a mass movement that confronted a ferocious state apparatus: the Woman Life Freedom protests. Each paid an enormous price.

Through vivid and original reporting, Stolen Revolution offers a compulsively readable new story of Iran, centring ordinary Iranians’ lives, whilst providing a visceral understanding of how life is actually lived under a modern authoritarian state. This is a harrowing story of power, corruption and greed – and those brave individuals who fought back.

© Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 20th Century Freedom & Security Middle East Military Modern Politics & Government

Critic Reviews

The best book to understand Iran today. Torbati and Sharafedin have written a masterful narrative that moves seamlessly between grand historical turning points and the intimate details of private lives . . . Beautifully written, perfectly timed, and impossible to put down, Stolen Revolution is a kaleidoscopic portrait of modern Iran by two of its most clear-eyed observers (Edward Fishman, author of New York Times-bestselling Chokepoints)
A consciousness-changing record of the oppression of extremism lived and resisted at the personal level . . . We are left with a portrait of a nation more nuanced, complicated, and promising than the world—and perhaps even its own leaders—have fully appreciated
A brilliant investigative history of modern Iran, a powerful story of ambition and survival amid the deepening coercion and repression of the Islamic regime. With prodigious research and unforgettable characters, the authors reveal the truth about Iran’s tumultuous revolutionary epoch —from mullahs to start-ups — and offer hope for a future beyond it (David E. Hoffman, author of The Billion Dollar Spy, a New York Times bestseller, and The Dead Hand, winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
Anyone who cares about the future of Iran should read Stolen Revolution. Yeganeh Torbati and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin explain how the 1979 revolution was subverted by Iran's corrupt and arrogant leaders—and how courageous Iranians continued to fight for a free and modern country. The Iranian people's struggle, told here though more than 130 interviews, should inspire us all (David Ignatius)
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