The Heartbeat of Iran: Real Voices of a Country and Its People

＂Tara Kangarou has created a work of people-to-people diplomacy, using her words to paint pictures of a very different country than the harsh, angry land depicted in the news.＂―Anne-Marie Slaughter

＂The Heartbeat of Iran gives us an illuminating and powerful portrait of a people who have been so often mischaracterized, and whose voices deserve to be heard.＂―Ben Rhodes, author, The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House

＂Tara Kangarlou brings to life the Iranian people―a people much misunderstood (and even maligned) in the west―and allows them their own voice in showing us what makes them who they are.＂―Hooman Majd, author, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

The Heartbeat of Iran takes us on a journey into everyday life in Iran, where we meet the diverse people who make up the country’s delicate socio-cultural, political, and religious mosaic. Through intimate portraits of regular Iranians―including a blind Sunni environmental activist; Iran’s first female race car driver; a paraplegic Olympian; and a young rabbi training the future generation of Jewish rabbis in Israel’s enemy state―we meet a people whose dreams and fears mirror that of countless others worldwide, and who yearn to join an international community that often views them through the blur of a hostile political fog.

Tara Kangarlou is an award-winning journalist who has produced and reported for NBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera America as well as many digital news outlets. She was the recipient of the Ted Sorensen Award from Network 20/20 for her impact journalism and humanitarian work in conflict zones. She founded ART OF HOPE, the first American nonprofit with the sole mission of supporting the psycho-social and mental health needs of war-torn refugees. Tara was born and raised in Tehran, and currently lives in London.

Tara Kangarlou is an award-winning American journalist who has produced, written, and reported for NBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera America as well as digital news outlets such as Al Monitor, The Huffington Post, and NewsMax. She is currently a fellow at the East West Institute and a frequent on-air contributor for various international news outlets covering the MENA region, foreign affairs, and humanitarian issues. As a journalist, she has interviewed many high ranking government officials, heads of states, and news makers in the US and around the world; and in recent years has spent much time in the Syrian border regions of Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan reporting and covering issues that impact Syrian refugees, host countries, and the Middle East at large. In 2015, she led Al Jazeera America’s team from inside Iran during the historic nuclear negotiations between the UN Security Council’s five permanent members and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tara has also reported from Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, the world’s largest refugee camp, covering the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims fleeing from Myanmar.

In 2018, Tara was the recipient of the Ted Sorensen Award from Network 20/20 for her impact journalism and humanitarian work in conflict zones. In 2016, she founded ART OF HOPE, the first American nonprofit with the sole mission of supporting the psycho-social and mental health needs of war-torn refugees. Tara was born and raised in Tehran, is fully bilingual in English and Farsi, and currently lives in London.