Former Iranian prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is under house arrest for his opposition of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently encouraged his daughter to read Gabriel García Márquez’s News of a Kidnapping to better understand his “situation in captivity.” Since the meeting, word of Mousavi’s book recommendation has “spread quickly across Iran’s huge online community, prompting hundreds of opposition supporters to seek out the book.”
Gabriel García Márquez Sales Are Up in Tehran
Isaac Fitzgerald
Isaac Fitzgerald has been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and was once given a sword by a king, thereby accomplishing three out of five of his childhood goals. Formerly of The Rumpus and McSweeney’s and most recently the founding editor of BuzzFeed Books, Isaac is now the co-host of BuzzFeed News’ Twitter Morning Show, #AMtoDM. He also appears frequently on The Today Show to talk books, and is co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them and Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos (with Recipes) (winner of an IACP award), and the author of a YA novel and picture book forthcoming from Bloomsbury. He uses Twitter.