Now Read the Book

To the Editors:

It may be of interest to your readers that shortly after Christopher Matthews recorded his interview with Richard Savin—which you published under the title “Prisoner of the Shah” (NYR, January 25)—we signed an agreement with Mr. Savin and his literary agent to publish his book. During his thirty months in the notorious prison Vakilabad near Mashad, he managed to smuggle out his diaries to friends in Europe. Based in part on these diaries and in part on his other experiences in Iran when not in prison, his book (already at an advanced stage) gives a graphic account of conditions in that country. It is not merely a personal account; his many encounters with the Iranians enabled him to give an exceedingly well-informed documentation of the “other” Iran of which we have so little reliable information.

Stephanie Wolfe Murray

Canongate Publishing Ltd.

Edinburgh, Scotland