Ash Navabi, a friend who was born in Iran and holds dual Iranian and Canadian citizenship, sent me a gift a few weeks ago. It’s pictured above. This is the Iranian version of my Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
Here is the story he told me. This summer, he traveled to Mashhad, Iran. It is the second most populous city in Iran, with a population of around 3 million. He came across a small bookstore.
Let Ash say it:
I asked the staff if there was a saving section, and to my surprise they did. Of the approximately 30 books in the section, I noticed 2 by one [here he spells out my name in Farsi]–“David Henderson!”
In short, this is a copy of your concise encyclopedia, translated into Persian. The first page indicates that this is actually the second printing of the book, from 2018, with 500 copies. I bought it at the sale price of 155,000 tomans, which is about 5 dollars.
I told Ash that since 2008 I have sold rights to translate into different languages but, unless my memory is bad, I had not sold rights to translate into Persian. [My records on sale of rights, and this is uncharacteristic of me, are not good.] If I remember correctly, it’s a pirated copy. But I’m not angry. The Iranian economy needs all the good economic thinking it can get.