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Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation

Interview | Growing Up Irooni - Nilo Tabrizy on the Cost of Telling Iran’s Story

Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation

Chai & Conversation

Iran, Conversation, Persian, Chai, Language Learning, Farsi, Courses, Education

4.9 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of Growing Up Irooni, journalist Nilo Tabrizy joins Leyla Shams to talk about her groundbreaking book For the Sun After Long Nights — The Story of Iran’s Women-Led Uprising, recently long-listed for the National Book Award.
Nilo reflects on what it means to love a country she can no longer return to, the emotional toll of reporting on Iran from afar, and her friendship and collaboration with Iranian journalist Fatemeh Jamalpour, who reported from inside Iran during the Women Life Freedom movement.

Together they discuss:

  • The personal cost of choosing to tell Iran’s story

  • The rise of forensic journalism and verifying truth in the digital age

  • The trauma and beauty of living between worlds

  • The responsibility and tensions within the Iranian diaspora

  • Why every act of defiance by Iranian women still matters


This conversation offers a rare glimpse into the human side of reporting on revolution, identity, and belonging.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

I'll never be able to take you to Iran and translate for you, introduce you to my family, and show you where I'm from.

0:06.1

None of you will ever fully see me.

0:08.5

And it's my fault. It's because of a choice I made to report on Iran. Salome Bahambe Hauteu. Salomebe Haemaghi, welcome to this growing up irini interview with journalist Nilu Tabrizzi, author of this fantastic new book that we found out has just been long listed for the National Book Award.

0:53.7

Now, I have to admit, when Nidu first had this

0:56.7

book sent to me, I was really hesitant to pick it up. It is about the Zanzendigiazadi movement,

1:01.9

and I wasn't sure if right now I wanted to revisit that moment. Obviously, we were all very

1:06.7

heavily invested in what was going on at the time, and I wasn't sure if now was the time to look

1:12.1

back. A lot has happened since then. The struggle continues, but I'm so, so, so happy that I did

1:20.6

pick up the book and that I read it. I could not put it down once I started reading. It covers the

1:26.0

Women Life Freedom Movement through the perspective of two

1:29.3

different people. One is Nilutabrizi, who at the time was the forensic analyst, who at the time of

1:35.7

the uprising was working at the New York Times, and Fatima Jamalpur, who is an Iranian journalist

1:41.4

who was in Iran at the time covering what experiences she was going through.

1:46.7

So the book goes back and forth between their two perspectives,

1:49.7

and it is incredible in the way it weaves in history, Iranian history,

1:55.1

the personal histories of the families of the women who wrote the book,

1:59.4

and also what they were going through in the present

2:02.4

time. Personally, as a member of the diaspora, I felt like Nilu really spoke to me as someone who has

2:08.5

been out of the country for so long, but loves Iran so deeply. So I won't talk much more.

2:14.3

I asked her so many questions. I'm so excited for you to hear the full conversation

2:19.0

with Nilutabrizi. Enjoy. Nilo Tabrizzi, thank you so much for talking with me today.

2:29.6

Merci, Leila, John, so excited to be here with you. Yeah, and we were talking just very briefly before. So your book

...

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