Minister Without Portfolio (eBook)

Memoir of a Reluctant Exile

Hooman Majd (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
320 Seiten
The Unnamed Press (Verlag)
979-8-9886700-7-0 (ISBN)

Infos

From the author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ comes a globe-spanning memoir of identity, exile, and reinvention.In many ways, Hooman Majd has led a charmed life: the son of a high-ranking diplomat in pre-Revolutionary Iran, he grew up in the upper echelons of Iranian society and in cosmopolitan diplomatic enclaves in San Francisco, London, and Washington, DC. As a young man, after Ayatollah Khomeinis Revolution in 1979, Majd sold real estate to fellow Iranian exiles in Beverly Hills, tried his hand at writing, and found his way into the orbit of Chris Blackwell, the impresario of Island Records and mastermind behind the careers of Bob Marley & the Wailers, U2, and other global superstars. After rising through the ranksand sometimes, but not always, the chartsMajd went on to write three influential books about his homeland and served as a consultant and contributor to NBC News on Iran. Yet, for all this authority and access, Majd could never truly call any place home.As he recounts in his open-hearted memoir Minister without Portfolionamed for the tongue-in-cheek title Blackwell bestowed on himHooman Majd has always been shadowed by a sense of precarity, even as he bantered with ambassadors wives at smoke-filled soirees or traded gossip with Grace Jones and Dennis Hopper at Goldeneye, Blackwells Jamaican estate and the former home of Ian Fleming. Majd had seen first-hand the havoc wrought on his familyand so many othersby the Iranian revolution. All his life, he has been questioned, frisked, or even threatened at points of entry. Though he has risked several return trips to Iran, today, officially, he can never go back. How can you build an identity when no place will claim you as its own?Told with grace, insight, and longingand filled with riotous, sometimes shocking portraits of larger-than-life personalities and illuminating insights about the entanglements between Iran and the WestMinister without Portfolio is a trenchant memoir of belonging nowhere and everywhere at once.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.9.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Schlagworte: backstage stories • behind the music • bob marley legacy • Chris Blackwell • creative career • Creative Nonfiction • cross-cultural journey • Cultural Commentary • Cultural Diplomacy • Cultural Identity • diaspora stories • diplomatic family • displacement narrative • Entertainment Industry • Global Citizen • Global politics • identity and belonging • Immigrant Experience • International affairs • International diplomacy • iranian memoir • iran nuclear negotiations • iran us relations • Island Records • Life in exile • Literary Nonfiction • middle eastern narrative • Middle East politics • Modern Iran • Multicultural identity • music biography • Music Industry • palm pictures • Persian culture • personal history • Political exile • polygram records • record label executive • reggae culture • u2 history
• ISBN-13: 979-8-9886700-7-0 / 9798988670070