Literature-loving Iranian women read more books than men

Employee Mahnaz Zabi poses with a bestselling book of the Nashre-Cheshmeh Publishing House in Iran's capital Tehran. Photo: AFP

French authors Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir rub shoulders with the likes of Jewish diarist Anne Frank and Russian poet Osip Mandelstam in Tehran bookstores where the largely female readership lap up foreign writers.

"Iranian women read more, translate more and write more. In general, they are more present in the book market than men," said Nargez Mossavat, editorial director of Sales publishers.