James Buchan first visited Iran nearly forty years ago. A student of Persian and Arabic, he was for many years a correspondent of the Financial Times in the Middle East, and later in central Europe and the US.

He has written more than a dozen works of fiction and history including a portrait of Edinburgh in the eighteenth century (Capital of the Mind), a biography of the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (Adam Smith and the Pursuit of Perfect Liberty) and a philosophy of money (Frozen Desire).

His most recent book is Days of God: The Revolution in Iran and its Consequences. He works a small farm in Norfolk.