A city of stories - short, fragmented, and at times contradictory - Tehran is an impossible tale to tell. For the capital city of one of the most powerful nations in the Middle East, its literary output is rarely acknowledged in the West. This celebration of its writing explores the tensions that make the city what it is today.

Tehran is Iran's most secular and liberal city. It is a city that is so much more than the usual chaotic maze of concrete and traffic jams thick with air pollution. This is the beating heart of Iran, a creative tour de force and the place to be to get a handle on modern Iran and what its future will likely be. The outside world focuses on extremes in Iran, but what the included writers set out to portray are their inner stories, and where they stand in all of this; their identity, their connections and their private lives. These are the stories till now untold because of a Western focus on only the big, bold issues in Iran. What may surprise the reader is the similarities between their lives and our own. Ten short stories, showcasing some of the most exciting, emerging voices in Iran today, guide the reader through the most populous city in Iran and Western Asia, and the second-largest metropolitan area in the Middle East today.