Tehran diary – Welcome to NOP (Nick Owen Publishing)

The Photographers of When the Sparrows Grow Anxious.

Over the next week, we will be profiling some of the photographers whose work appears in the book, and reflecting on how their images contribute to its power, texture and witness.

We would particularly like to thank the IRNA news agency, which generously donated almost two thirds of the photographs used in the publication. We are also deeply grateful to the many individual photographers whose work has helped make the book such an exceptional production:

Ahmad Moeini Jam, Akbar Tavakkoli, Ali Sharifi, Bahram Bayat, Eshaq Aghaei, Mahmoud Farjami, Maryam Al Momen Dehkordi, Marzieh Mousavi, Marzieh Pourarab, Marzieh Soleimani, Mohammad Mahdi Pourarab, Mohammadrasoul Moradi, Mohsen Rezaei, Sadegh Miri and Sadra Nouri.

We begin with the work of Mohsen Rezaei.

Turkmenistan Street in Tehran: After the Attack

On Turkmenistan Street in Tehran, a motionless man lies on a corrugated metal sheet amid the rubble. A red cloth has been wrapped around his head, and one of his arms hangs over the edge of the metal. A woman in a light-colored headscarf kneels beside him, while a young man stands a few steps away. Both seem fixed on a scene that, only hours earlier, had been part of the city’s ordinary daily life.

At the intersection of Turkmenistan Street and Motahari Avenue, little remains of the local police station except twisted, burned metal. The blast damaged surrounding buildings as well. Windows have been shattered, walls cracked, and nearby shops and homes bear clear signs of destruction.

On the right side of the photograph, an emergency ambulance is parked at the scene. Some people are making phone calls or checking on the injured. Others are assisting rescue workers, while many simply stand and watch. Cars and motorcycles still line the street, but normal movement has come to a halt; the entire area is overshadowed by the aftermath of the attack.

The photograph was taken by Mohsen Rezaei on the afternoon of Monday, March 1, 2026, following an Israeli airstrike on this part of central Tehran. It captures a moment when everyday life was abruptly interrupted. A street that only hours before had been filled with commuters, shopkeepers, and office workers had become a site of rescue efforts and devastation.

Yet even amid the destruction, signs of solidarity remain. Residents, bystanders, and emergency workers stand together, helping the wounded and trying to preserve a sense of humanity in the face of loss.

To order your copy now or find out more about the work of NOP please feel free to get in touch here!

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When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: Diaries from Tehran at War
Author: Ali Asghar Seidabadi
Publisher: Nick Owen Publishing Ltd
Publication: 15 June 2026
ISBN: 9798197042132
Format: [Hardback / Paperback / Kindle / eBook)
Available from: Nick Owen Publishing / Amazon

#WhenTheSparrowsGrowAnxious

#DiariesFromTehran

#BooksBuildBridges

A stylized illustration of a bird with a brown and white plumage, standing on two legs against a white background.

The People Behind When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: Lili Yazdi and Trish Amichi

It doesn’t take just a writer to write a book. It takes collaborators, advocates, editors, agents, translators, encouragers and behind-the-scenes influencers to help bring a book out into the open.

When the Sparrows Grow Anxious is no exception.

At Nick Owen Publishing, we have been privileged to work with two such people: Lili Yazdi and Trish Amichi. Both have played an important part in helping this remarkable book find its way into the world.

A grayscale illustrated portrait of a woman wearing a headscarf and glasses, featuring soft and abstract lines.

Lili Yazdi

As the founder of Kia Literary Agency, I represent authors whose work expands perspectives, honours lived experience, and contributes meaningfully to contemporary literature. I am especially passionate about stories that explore identity, migration, resilience, and the complexities of human connection.

Kia is dedicated to introducing Iran’s literary talent to global markets, with a strong focus on children’s and young adult literature. The agency connects Iranian authors, illustrators, and publishers with readers and industry professionals worldwide, while also bringing distinguished foreign titles to Iran.

Over two decades, Kia has built an extensive international network through active participation in leading book fairs , platforms which allow us to showcase Iranian works , foster cross-cultural literary exchange, and advise on international publishing and rights.

Most recently, I served as lead agent for the forthcoming title ; When the Sparrow Grow Anxious: Diaries from Tehran at War by acclaimed Iranian writer Ali Asghar Seidabadi, set for release by Nick Owen Publishing House, a respected independent UK publisher.

Through my work, I aim to continue building a literary home where powerful stories are nurtured, protected, and brought into the world with integrity.

Trish Amichi

A sketched portrait of a person with short hair and a neutral expression, depicted in shades of gray and white.

My professional experience reaches across the Health, Education and Arts sectors. I am Founder and Program Coordinator of BIG ONES LITTLE ONES® (BOLO) – an international visual art/literacy program set up in 2004, open to all irrespective of barriers, real or perceived. Recognising art as a means of communication, BOLO gives young ones a voice and allows them to become the storytellers of their own lives. Connecting classrooms, communities, cultures and countries means these stories can be exchanged and shared – celebrating diversity, raising awareness of our common humanity.

More recently I have been responsible for concept development and English language editing of a new bilingual children’s picture book. Raising awareness of childhood dementia, My Box of Memories has just been published in Iran.

Being part of the team that has brought When the Sparrows Grow Anxious to life is both an honour and a privilege.

Through his images and words, Ali Asghar Seidabadi quietly documents the everyday lives of men, women and children trying to maintain some sense of normality while living under the constant threat of attack. He calls out the futility of war and reminds us that no-one and nothing is spared when the bombs are dropped. Above all else, this book is a plea for peace — not just for Iran or the Middle East, but for the whole world.

To order your copy now or find out more about the work of NOP please feel free to get in touch here!

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Thank you for your response. ✨

Email: nick@nickowenpublishing.co.uk
Website: www.nickowenpublishing.com

#WhenTheSparrowsGrowAnxious

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When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: how do you decide on a book title?

When the Sparrows Grow Anxious takes its title from the ordinary bird that lives close to human beings: on rooftops, in courtyards, near windows and in streets where life continues even when history becomes unbearable. It arose through Ali Seidabadi’s immediate experience of the recent bombings in Tehran and in the book he writes:

“My childhood in the village was filled with the sound of sparrows, and during this war, their voices have felt like the sound of life itself.

I have seen how, at the moment of an explosion, they become restless and frantic.

I have felt their absence on days when the blasts were intense.

I have always remembered spring by the sound of sparrows – but this year, they have noticeably diminished.

I want to turn what I have written so far into a book. I had already chosen a title for it:

When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: Diaries from Tehran at War

He wrote this close to World Sparrow Day – 20th March. Whilst this marks the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, it is also the New Year in Iran (Nowruz) which Ali writes about in the book and illustrates with photos: it’s a time when sparrows are nesting and their presence in cities and farms becomes most visible.

Much like canaries in coal mines, sparrows are indicator species. Their disappearance signals air pollution, loss of green spaces and fewer insects. They are closely tied to our lives; they nest in eaves, feed on crumbs and chirp in courtyards. Their decline reflects how modern cities are losing biodiversity. Sparrows also show up in Persian poetry and Sufi thought as symbols of humility, resilience, community, simplicity and divine care: the idea that even the smallest creature is noticed. These ideas resonate strongly with Persian poetic and moral traditions that value tavazo (humility) and finding meaning in the ordinary.

World Sparrow Day fits neatly with that cultural view: paying attention to the small, ordinary things that hold spiritual and ecological meaning: and in Ali’s book, the anxious sparrow also becomes a witness, a warning and a companion to ordinary life in Tehran under pressure.

We are pleased to announce that in the future, NOP too will remember World Sparrow Day on 20^th March and dedicate our work to those small indicators of health and well-being which we unwittingly rely upon so much.

Thanks to Lili Hayeri Yazdi for additional text: and to Paul Warren our resident illustrator for his responses to When the Sparrows Grow Anxious.

To order your copy now or find out more about the work of NOP please feel free to get in touch here!

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Thank you for your response. ✨

Email: nick@nickowenpublishing.co.uk
Website: www.nickowenpublishing.com

#WhenTheSparrowsGrowAnxious

#DiariesFromTehran

#BooksBuildBridges

When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: is it still the work of the English?

In Iran, there is a famous common saying: “It’s the work of the English” and whilst the UK government resisted backing the US war on Iran at its inception, this nation state has hardly covered itself in glory in the region over many decades.

Growing up in England and looking on at the conflicts that perpetuate in the Middle East has left many of us feeling utterly at a loss about how to understand those conflicts, let alone consider how to contribute to their solutions. In the last 20+ years alone, those who we thought of as progressive thinkers who could make a significant difference to peace in the region just turned into clones of the same war mongering wolves who continued to wreak havoc. The UK government’s involvement in the Iraq war spings to mind for example.

So with that context in our minds and with Trump’s more recent insanities (“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again…”) how do we respond?

In early May, we were blessed with an introduction to the author, Ali Asghar Seidabadi through a long standing friend in Sydney, Australia, Trish Amichi, and her colleague Lili Yazdi who has been a long standing colleague with Ali himself. They were on a quest to have When The Sparrows Grow Anxious printed as soon as possible and we were happily in a position to be able to oblige and support that quest.

NOP was founded with a simple conviction: that small, independent publishers have a responsibility not only to entertain readers, but also to take seriously the stories that might otherwise remain unheard. We publish books that are humane, distinctive, thoughtful and sometimes difficult to categorise. Some are comic, some are reflective, some are deliberately eccentric. But at the heart of every Nick Owen Publishing book is a commitment to voice: to the individual perspective, the lived experience, the marginal note, the private observation, the story written at an angle to the official account.

When the Sparrows Grow Anxious belongs firmly within that tradition. It records the texture of ordinary life under extraordinary pressure. Through diary fragments, reflections, memories and sharply observed moments, it allows readers to experience what conflict does to time, language, family, friendship, humour, fear and hope.

We are publishing this book because it speaks from a place that is too often spoken about rather than listened to. It offers an intimate account of Tehran during a period of danger and uncertainty, but it also reaches beyond one city and one conflict. It asks what it means to remain human when public events invade private life. It asks how people continue to notice birds, food, jokes, books, neighbours and weather when history presses against the window.

For an independent publisher, this is vital.

Publishing this book also reflects our belief that books can create connections across borders. At a time when public debate is often reduced to slogans, suspicion and noise, When the Sparrows Grow Anxious invites a slower, more attentive form of reading. It asks us to sit with another person in their days, to recognise vulnerability without sentimentality, and to understand that the consequences of war are lived not only in headlines, but in kitchens, streets, silences and small acts of endurance.

We are proud to bring this book to readers.

It is a work of witness, memory and moral imagination. It is also, in its quiet way, an act of trust: trust between writer and reader, between publisher and author, and between people separated by geography but connected by the fragile, stubborn hope that words still matter.

Photo: Attack on a factory in Tehran. Photo by Mohammad Mahdi Pourarab

To order your copy now or find out more about the work of NOP please feel free to get in touch here!

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Thank you for your response. ✨

Email: nick@nickowenpublishing.co.uk
Website: www.nickowenpublishing.com

#WhenTheSparrowsGrowAnxious

#DiariesFromTehran

#BooksBuildBridges

Meet the Author of ‘When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: Ali Asghar Seidabadi

Ali-Asghar Seidabadi says, “I have lived 200 years compressed into 50.” In his childhood, there was no television, electricity, or telephone in his village, while today he is an active participant in the digital world. He was born in a village in northeastern Iran as the eldest child in a large family with six siblings. At the beginning of his teenage years, he moved to a boarding school in Neyshابur to continue his education, a school located beside the tomb of Omar Khayyam in one of Iran’s oldest gardens.

Three years later, at the age of fifteen, he altered his birth certificate in order to join the Iran–Iraq War fronts. He spent nearly a year, intermittently, at the front lines, with the final months coinciding with the ceasefire and the presence of United Nations forces. The experience of living in a boarding school, growing up in the shadow of Khayyam, and witnessing war firsthand profoundly shaped his personality and worldview. His commitment to nonviolence and his opposition to war emerge directly from those formative experiences.

During the 1990s, widely regarded as the golden age of Iranian journalism, Seidabadi became a well-known figure in Iran’s cultural and journalistic spheres. He was responsible for the culture, arts, and thought sections of several widely read reformist newspapers and later became a member of their editorial boards. Alongside his journalistic work, he wrote books for children and young adults and conducted research in children’s literature, reading promotion, and cultural studies.

About fifteen years ago, he stepped away from professional journalism and pursued diverse experiences ranging from cultural management to research and education. He now lives in Tehran and works full-time as a writer and researcher. During the American and Israeli attacks on Tehran, he remained in the city, witnessing events from a perspective shaped by his unique experiences of war, culture, and social life. His reflections offer a rare and deeply human perspective on violence, society, and the fate of contemporary humanity.

For further information visit:

http://nevisak.ir/en/سیدآبادی-علی%E2%80%8Cاصغر/

And here’s a brief moment from the beginning of When The Sparrows Grow Anxious:

Around 10am on Saturday 28th February 2026, the United States and Israel attacked Iran. I was arguing with a friend on Instagram about a political issue when I heard the sound of an explosion. I wrote: “Well, our argument is over – war has begun!” We wished each other well, and since I was sure the internet would soon be cut off, I wrote a short post opposing a foreign attack on Iran and wishing health and safety for Iranians. A few minutes later, the internet was cut off, in such a way that there was no access even with any VPN.

‏The news was contradictory and bizarre.

‏On the third day of the war, after three days without internet, I went to the office of the newspaper where Giso – my wife – worked. Their access to international internet had just been restored, and so I took this opportunity to connect as well.

‏First of all, I checked Instagram to see the reactions to my post. In those days, on Iranian social networks, supporters of foreign military intervention to change the government had the upper hand. Opponents had either fallen silent or their words had no reflection.

Publisher Nick Owen MBE, founder of Nick Owen Publishing, said:

“At a time when the President of the USA can assert “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again…” Ali Asghar Seidabadi has written a book of huge courage. These diary notes attend to the human texture of war: to windows, birds, phone calls, friendships, children’s books, and the stubborn persistence of ordinary life. That is precisely why the book matters and why we are honoured to bring his work to a wider, global public.”

To order your copy now please complete the following details:

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Thank you for your response. ✨

Email: nick@nickowenpublishing.co.uk
Website: www.nickowenpublishing.com

When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: Diaries from Tehran at War
Author: Ali Asghar Seidabadi
Publisher: Nick Owen Publishing Ltd
Publication: June 2026
ISBN: 9798197042132
Format: [Hardback / Paperback / Kindle / eBook)
Available from: Nick Owen Publishing / Amazon

#WhenTheSparrowsGrowAnxious

#DiariesFromTehran

#BooksBuildBridges

Tag: Tehran diary

The Photographers of When the Sparrows Grow Anxious.

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The People Behind When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: Lili Yazdi and Trish Amichi

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When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: how do you decide on a book title?

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When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: is it still the work of the English?

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Meet the Author of ‘When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: Ali Asghar Seidabadi

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