Behind Closed Curtains

At some point in my life, I started thinking every nine months something dramatic would happen. First, my mom was diagnosed with cancer; nine months later my boyfriend dumped me, and then nine months after that I was laid off from work. My flatmate and I joked it was hinting at one of us becoming pregnant. But what all this was really leading to was quite different: the decision to write this book. The last event happened in June 2016. After a year without a holiday, it was a good moment to rest and think about what I really wanted to do. Life had been a bit like a washing machine for more than three years. After traveling through South and Central America and moving to Barcelona, I was the person I wanted to be; but I was not doing what I wanted to do. It took me two weeks before waking up one Monday knowing what I would do. My list of ideas and projects had been long, but what I really wanted to do was produce a coffee table book on interior design in Iran - with my own savings and being responsible for every step. No one had done this before, but I knew about the hidden treasures of old Persia. I sometimes wake up and have these epiphanies - it's as if my brain and heart talk during the night and come up with the perfect solution the next day. When I say Iran, I talk as it were France or Argentina; for me, Iran is like any other country in the world, because I look at the people. I don't write this book for the country but for the Iranian people. My relationship with Iran started off pretty naively. When I was 19, I wanted to study the Middle East and become a war journalist. The dust and stories in Afghanistan called to me. I didn't have the courage though and turned to more solid fields, first law and then journalism, only to return to Middle Eastern studies and politics in the end. The upheavals, the adventures, the otherness of the region was too tempting. My father feared I would end up a taxi driver like humanities graduates before me in Germany. But I was

Lena Späth ist freiberufliche Autorin, die zwischen München und Teheran pendelt. Ihr Buch 'Behind Closed Curtains: Interior Design in Iran' erschien 2017 im Eigenverlag. Diverse Medien wie The Guardian, AD Magazine oder Süddeutsche Zeitung berichteten positiv. Lena studierte Nahostwissenschaften und Politik in München und arbeitete zuvor für Startups und Beratungsfirmen.