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‘When I decided to abandon my medical career, I could never have imagined that one day, if someone Googled the two words ‘Iran’ and ‘Doctor’ my name would appear among the top ten search results. And not because I was a good doctor, but because I had just failed to save the life of a young girl bleeding to death in the street.’

So begins–or maybe concludes–the chain of events that were to change the life of a young Iranian doctor, writer and publisher forever. On 20 June 2009, during demonstrations to protest the fraudulent Iranian presidential election, a young girl called Neda

was shot to death in the streets of Tehran. Within hours, the video footage of Neda’s death,fortuitously captured on a roving camera-phone, had circled the globe. Outside the country, the incident was a nine-day wonder; in Iran it changed the course of politics for a new generation.

It was also the moment of choice for the young doctor who had tried and failed to save her. Within days he had left Iran to tell the world the story the government was denying: Neda had died at the hands of the pro-government militia. After this, any chance of returning home was gone; Arash Hejazi, author and publisher himself became a target.

But as Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, writes in the introduction to his friend’s boo... >>>