PEACE CORPS IRAN AUTHORS
A NONCOMPREHENSIVE LIST OF BOOKS ABOUT IRAN, THE PEACE CORPS EXPERIENCE, AND OTHER SUBJECTS PUBLISHED BY IRAN RPCVS, STAFF, AND FRIENDS OF PCIA
BAHRAMPOUR, Tara, 1999. To See and See Again: A Life in Iran and America. Farrar Straus & Giroux.
BRISKIN, Dennis, 2019. Iran Before, privately published. Dennis’s two large-format, coffee-table style books contain art-quality, black and white images of Iran in the Peace Corps era.
BRISKIN, 2020. The Face of Iran before…, privately published.
CROOK, Jay R. (writing as Robert Bangor), 2011, revised Ed. 2015. The Burnt City (A Novel of Iran on the Eve of Revolution), privately published.
CROOK, 2015. Ambling Through Life: With Stopovers in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, France, Greece, Paradis, and Elsewhere, IMN Productions.
DEVINE, David, 2001. Persian Mosaic: Getting Back to Iran After 25 Years, Writer’s Showcase.
EATON, Richard M., 2019. India in the Persianate Age, 1000-1765. University of California Press. Almost a dozen of Dick’s books written since 1978 are available on Amazon.
ETHERIDGE, John C., 2010. Uncharted Waters: One man’s voyage to discover what he was born to do, AuthorHouse.
FAIRBANKS, Stephen C., 2023. Before the Revolution: Photographs of Provincial Iran 1964-1979, independently published.
FRAME, Margaret A., 2014. Passage to Persia: Writings of an American doctor during her life in Iran, 1929-1957, Summertime Publishing. Margaret’s mother was a missionary doctor in Iran when she was born in 1941. Margaret joined Peace Corps in 1999 and spent two years in Morocco.
GAUGHAN, Joan, 2021. The Shuster Mission to Iran – Leaving Something Worthwhile Behind, Real Nice Books. Joan has published other books beginning in 1991.
GOODE, James F., 2007. Negotiating For the Past: Archaeology, Nationalism, and Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1919-1941. University of Texas Press.
GOODE, 2021. Living, Loving Iran: A Memoir, Mazda Publishers.
GRAY, Arlene Elle, 2012. Letters From Iran: Memoirs of a Peace Corps Volunteer 1970-1972, Xlibris Corps.
HALL, John Gregory, 2022. Journeying Out Alone, privately published. On leaving rural Mulberry, Texas to serve in Peace Corps Iran (plus other genealogical books on life in Mulberry).
HEGLAND, Mary Elaine, 2014. Days of Revolution: Political Unrest in an Iranian Village, Stanford University Press.
HILLMANN, Michael Craig, 1991. From Durham to Tehran, Iranbooks.
HILLMANN, 1986. A Lonely Woman: Forugh Farrokhzad and Her Poetry, Rienner Publishers. Mike has a long list of published books.
HOOGLUND, Eric J., 2014. Land and Revolution in Iran, 1960-80, CMES Modern Middle East Series Book 7, University of Texas Press. Eric has published several books and over a hundred articles on Iran.
HOUSTON, Andre, Angels, 2017, ChildrenLearning, includes six pages on Mosques and Persia.
HUGHES, Tom, 2023. Iran and Me, All of Us, Actually: Reflections of a Peace Corps Volunteer and How Persian Peoples Originated or Improved Upon Everything We Take for Granted, Eats Publishing.
KEECH, Rea, 2015. A Hundred Veils, Real Nice Books.
KEECH, 2025. Saint Sergey’s Head, Real Nice Books. Rea has written novels with international locales, from Afghanistan to Iran to Russia.
KLOBE, Tom, 2014. A Young American in Iran, Peace Corps Worldwide.
KLOBE, 2022. The Islamic Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo: Other Views. Mazda Publishers. Art-quality, coffee-table style book with 500 color photos.
KRAUSKOPF, John, 2014. Iran: Stories from the Peace Corps. Lulu.
KRAUSKOPF (Editor), 2021. Memories and Insights: Iran through the Eyes of Peace Corps Volunteers, Lulu.
LANDSBERG, Marc, 2006. Landsberg’s Law: A Journey of Discovery, Morris Publishing.
LEMONS, David K. 2011. The Crescent, the Sea, & the Long Sand: Poems and Stories, CreateSpace. Poems and short fiction inspired by David’s travel and his Peace Corps service.
LIMBERT, John, 2004. Shiraz in the Age of Hafez, The University of Washington Press.
LIMBERT, 2009. Negotiating With Iran: Wresting the Ghosts of History, United States Institute of Peace Press. John has written multiple books and co-authored a novel.
LIMBERT, and Marc Grossman, 2020. Believers: Love and Death in Tehran, Mazda Publishers. A thrilling and engrossing spy novel.
LIMBERT, John and Frahang, Mansour, 2025. A Modern Theocracy: Iran’s Anti-Enlightenment Revolution Endures. Mazda Publishers.
LORENTZ, John H., 1995. Historical Dictionary of IRAN, Scarecrow Press. Updated as The A to Z of Iran, 2010.
MACKINNON, Colin, 2009. The Contractor, St. Martin’s Press. In addition to foreign intrigue fiction books, Colin’s writings include Iranian linguistics, the history of cryptology, and Middle East trade.
MARKS, Mary Dana, 2017. Walled In, Walled Out: A Young American Woman in Iran, Peace Corps Writers.
MOORE, Thomas R., 2010. The Bolt-Cutters: Poems, FortHemlockPress. Tom has written multiple books of poetry, including poems about his life in Iran.
NEWTON, John, 2022. An American in Revolutionary Iran, Tasora Books. Volunteer experiences and working in Tehran during the years leading up to the return of Khomeini.
NYE-DORRY, Gertrude,1998. 45 Years in Iran, A Memoir, privately published.
O’DONNELL, Terence, 1980. Garden of the Brave in War, Ticknor & Fields.
O’DONNELL, 1999. Seven Shades of Memory, Mage Publishers. Short fiction based on his seventeen years in Iran. Terry authored historical books on Oregon, while working for the Oregon Historical Society in Portland.
PEKNIK, George, 2004. The Meaning of the Boulder-Dushanbe Teahouse, Hoopoe Publications. History and description of the Sister-Cities project begun during the Cold War between Boulder, Colorado, and Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
PHINNEY, Alice, 1975. Yekke Bude, Yekke Na Bude, Hearthstone Book.
PILLER, Thomas J., 2024. A Pathway, From No Path, A Memoir: A heartfelt depiction of an African American’s struggles, successes, and the profound influence that his unlikely 1962 Peace Corps journey to the heart of Iran had on shaping his future, Peace Corps Writers.
PITZER, Paul C., 2015. “Hello Mister,” Blurb Publishing. PDF or softcover with color photos. Month-by-month chronicle of Paul’s PC service in Ahar, Azerbaijan.
ROSEN, Barbara and Barry, with George Feifer, 1982. The Destined Hour, The Hostage Crisis and One Family’s Ordeal, Doubleday.
ROSTAM-KOLAYI, Jasamin, 2018. “The New Frontier Meets the White Revolution: The Peace Corps in Iran, 1962‒76.” Iranian Studies, 51(4), 587-612.
ROSTAM-KOLAYI, Jasamin, 2022. “We Learned How to Be Friends: What Oral History Tells Us about the American Peace Corps in Iran.” American-Iranian Dialogues: From Constitution to White Revolution, 1890s-1960s, edited by Matthew Shannon, Bloomsbury.
SEAVER, Jennifer B-C, 2004. Journeys: A Novel of Iran, iUniverse.
VANDERWERF, Barbara, 2021. Four Seasons, A Kharenji in Iran in the 1960s, privately published.
WANGSNESS, Genna Stead, 2023. Land Between Two Waters: The Peace Corps, Fourteen Years in Iran, 1962-1976, Peace Corps Writers. A chronological history of over fifty volunteer groups that trained for Iran and memories of those who served.
YALE, Carolyn, 2015. Night Vision, privately published. Twenty-four poems paired with stunningly beautiful art photographs reproduced on high-quality paper.
YALE, 2013. Between the Fault Lines, Sugartown Publishing. Seventeen of Carolyn’s poems are included in this anthology by a group of eight poets residing on the east side of San Francisco Bay, an area of many earthquake faults.