Arash Hejazi

Arash Hejazi, born 1971 in Tehran, Iran, is an Iranian physician, novelist, fiction writer and translator of literary works from English and Portuguese into Persian.

He is also an editor in Caravan Books Publishing House (Iran), and Book Fiesta Literary Magazine.

He is also a novel writer, whose best known novel The Princess of the Land of Eternity was shortlisted for two major Iranian literary prizes and has sold more than 20,000 copies in Iran since its first publication in 2003.

He is a member of the Tehran Union of Publishers and Booksellers (TUPB) and was the managing editor of its journal, Sanat-e-Nashr (Publishing Industry), from 2006 to 2007.

He was one of the nominees to receive the Freedom to Publish Prize held by International Publishers’ Association (IPA) in 2006.

He in 2009 he received his MA in Publishing from Oxford Brookes University.

He was present at the death of Neda Agha-Soltan during the 2009 Iranian election protests, and was one of those who attempted to save her life.

He lived in Tehran.

Arash Hejazi is reported to have since fled Iran out of fear of government reprisals.

Arash Hejazi studied medicine and his thesis was "The influences of storytelling on children's anxiety disorders".

He has three novels and many short stories, including:

As a literary translator, he has translated many works, from Paulo Coelho, Milan Kundera, Kahlil Gibran Lord Dunsany, etc.

Hejazi was present at a rally held in Tehran on June 20, 2009, to protest alleged electoral fraud in the Iranian presidential elections, at which Neda Agha-Soltan was shot and killed, allegedly by a member of the Basij militia.

He was among the first to respond when Neda was shot, but his attempts to save her life were unsuccessful.

A non-political figure, Hejazi has spoken out, describing the events that transpired at the rally and surrounding Neda's death.

His dissertation on censorship in Iran was published in the publishing journal Logos in 2011, and his memoir The Gaze of the Gazelle about growing up in Iran after the Islamic Revolution was published by University of Chicago Press in 2011.