Readers seek out Pathfinder titles at Tehran Book Fair (continued)

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Readers seek out Pathfinder titles at Tehran Book Fair (continued)

The Tehran International Book Fair is the largest in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Photos by Abolfazl Salmanzadeh, Mehr News Agency.

Forty-three people picked up Pathfinder’s top selling title, Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power, by Jack Barnes. While some fairgoers had heard of Malcolm X as a result of the Spike Lee Hollywood film, many, particularly younger people, did not know about the U.S. revolutionary leader but nevertheless wanted to buy the book after hearing a short explanation of its contents, browsing through it, and looking at the photo signatures. The second highest seller at the Pathfinder stand was Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? by Mary-Alice Waters.

Books on the fight for women’s liberation were among Pathfinder’s most popular titles. A college lecturer bought five such titles, including Woman’s Evolution by Evelyn Reed, saying they were needed to present the historical case, outlined in Reed’s works, for the existence of matriarchy in early human societies. Reed’s Is Biology Woman’s Destiny? and Problems of Women’s Liberation, along with the recently-issued second edition of Lenin’s Final Fight and The Communist Manifesto were among the best selling Pathfinder titles.

Visitors to the Pathfinder exhibit included readers from the Afghan and Kurdish populations in Iran. A young Kurd bought Two Speeches by Malcolm X, The Long View of History, and Che Guevara Talks to Young People. A 19-year-old Afghan, born in Iran, bought Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible?, Genocide Against the Indians, and the pamphlet version of Malcolm X Talks to Young People.

Two Iranian publishing houses that between them have published around 30 copyrighted translations of Pathfinder titles are regular exhibitors at the fair. A large poster advertising the second and concluding volume of the Farsi translation of Woman’s Evolution was prominent at the stand of Golâzin publications. That book was for sale alongside several other translations of Pathfinder titles.

Also present was Talaye Porsoo, a publisher that reported it has sold some 400 copies this year of translations of Pathfinder titles, with The Communist Manifesto its top seller. The publisher’s Farsi translation of Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? is now off the press.

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