Undoubtedly, since the time that humans learned to read and write and were able to share their experiences with others, especially future generations, and preserve their achievements through this magnificent phenomenon of empirical science, they laid the foundation for human civilization and continued to progress. From that time until now, humanity has achieved many great and abundant accomplishments, and has considered books as an essential source of knowledge, making reading an important factor in raising awareness in societies and, as a result, in the development and progress of human civilization and life. Literature, which is considered one of the seven universal arts, has been expanded and preserved.

Humans, nowadays more than ever, have realized the importance of books and reading in their lives and have given it a special and significant place. In this regard, there is a famous quote that says: “A nation that does not read, is destined to experience all of history.” The meaning of these sentences is the experience and repetition of backwardness and exorbitant costs that that nation must pay for not reading and being ignorant of their own destiny.

Europeans believe that a nation that is not inclined towards learning will be left behind in progress and development. It must be noted that such a nation will have no understanding of its own history and past, and therefore will remain ignorant of the truths and realities of the past that pave the way for the future of humanity; truths and realities that, if ignored, will result in a lack of knowledge about the rise and fall of ancient civilizations and the secrets of success or failure of people in both distant and recent times. As a result, such a nation will never comprehend how previous generations dealt with the realities of life and what bitter and sweet experiences they have gone through.

In today’s world, studying plays an important role in human life and receives attention and precision. In this regard, the level of production, printing and publishing of books, as well as the quality and quantity of works, are very important and significant, and the perspective and approach of governments and people towards books, as well as the level of reading in each society, are the focus of attention.

It can be said that the birth of books and reading also brings with it a counterpart, and that counterpart is nothing but censorship; meaning the problematic and harmful issue that in every era and society, its form, intensity and severity are determined and imposed by the authorities, and of course, it has always been and is detrimental to humanity and its achievements. In societies with self-centered and dictatorial authorities, this censorship appears as a chronic and dangerous disease and prevents the creation, progress, and expansion of books and reading.

Censorship has been one of the most pressing issues in Iranian society for many years, and today it has become a major obstacle to the creation, production, and spread of books and book reading in our country. On the other hand, it can be said that the severity and intensity of this censorship, which is accompanied by threats, intimidation, harassment, and persecution of writers and artists, has led to another problem called self-censorship in society. The sword of censorship has caused difficulties and a decline in the quality of printing and publishing works in Iran over the years. This problem has become so widespread and has had such negative effects that it can be confidently stated that censorship and, as a result, self-censorship have unfortunately reached their peak in the history of censorship in this land of oppression. In recent years, writers and artists have been forced to obtain a permit from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance before publishing their books, which in many cases has resulted in non-publication or

Unfortunately, these cases affect thousands of valuable works in various fields and from both veteran and emerging writers. Perhaps we can mention Mahmoud Dolatabadi’s work “Kelidar” as a prominent and well-known work that, due to censorship, has not been allowed to be published for many years. This is while the same work is easily published and distributed in several other countries and languages around the world. Mahmoud Dolatabadi is a well-known and prolific Iranian writer who has had dozens of valuable works such as the novels “Kelidar”, “The Empty Place of Soluch”, “Baba Sobhan’s Deer”, “My Fortunate Deer”, “The Time of the Elderly People” and others published and distributed, with a large number of readers.

Furthermore, Mansour Yaghouti, a well-known Iranian writer who has many works such as the novel “A Lamp on the Heights of the Median Mountains”, “The Flying Bird of the Strange Zagros”, “The Tales of Ahudra”, “The Legend of Sirang”, etc., his 300-page critique of the book “Opposing Odes to Grand Orchestras” written by Masoud Kimiayi was never published due to censorship. What is even more painful is that a publisher, claiming to not agree with the publisher’s beliefs, has denied the publication of this work and has prevented it from ever being published.

In recent years, following the elimination of elites and, in other words, the killing of elites and the escape of alternative thinkers that has happened in the country, all the tools and factors of the writing field have also been removed. Nowadays, there is no such thing as book distribution centers throughout the country and all of these centers have been closed. The tradition of critiquing works, which has been one of the main tools in improving the quantity and quality of works and the founder of introducing books and promoting reading, has almost disappeared. There is no trace of magazines and publications that professionally printed and published various critiques and also introduced new and old literary figures. Publishers in these years, unlike the past, do not invest the minimum in publishing the books of writers and the writer himself must pay for the cost of publishing his book; something that is not possible for many due to the poverty of most writers. On the other hand, a few large state-owned publishers that have a lot of facilities – such

In addition to these problems, the increasing cost of paper and other necessary materials for printing and publishing is unbelievable. In the past two years, the price of paper has increased by one hundred times, making it impossible for authors who self-publish with their own capital to reprint their books due to this exorbitant cost. As a result, their works remain in the hands of their creators without any means or organization to publish them, and they end up gathering dust for years. It is obvious that these problems, along with many others that have plagued Iranian society in recent years, have taken away all the enthusiasm and motivation for creating works and even reading books from every citizen. As a result, the circulation of books and the level of reading in Iran have decreased to an unbelievable extent. The circulation of books in the capital is now only 100 copies, and in some cities it has even reached 10-12 copies. It seems that offset printing in Iran has come to an end, as this small

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In general, today in Iran, you will not find a writer or artist who has not felt the weight of censorship on their soul and work, and has not suffered from it. Censorship that blinds their passion, enthusiasm, and talent, and inflicts irreparable and destructive damage on the people of literature and art, and ultimately on society.

A new writer named M.R, who did not want his full name to be mentioned, says: “My first work was a collection of short stories that we had submitted to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance for approval before printing, according to the usual procedure here. They selected the longest story from the collection and asked for it to be completely removed. This review by the Ministry of Culture was done when we had already completed the typesetting and the stages of filming and bookbinding.” This writer, who was also the publisher, added: “We were forced to remove that story from the collection and not only did we suffer significant spiritual and material losses, but the book that was published was not well received due to this review.”

During a conversation with Mr. A, another bitter story was told about a young writer who was not willing to mention his full name. “For the publication of my first work, which was a collection of good stories, due to the chaos in the publishing market of the country, I had no choice but to entrust it to someone who had experience in publishing. However, he took my money and did not publish my work.” He added, “After that, I was very disappointed and lost hope in the path I had taken.”

It is obvious that the lack or weakness of book printing and publishing, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in any society and the lack of interest of the people in that society in books and reading will lead to the backwardness of that society and such societies will not have a desirable fate. What has been learned from experiences in the field of books and reading is that in countries that have seriously considered solutions such as improving the quality of books and easy access to them, the rate of reading has increased. The UNESCO Literary Organization occasionally addresses the level of reading in different societies and conducts statistics. According to one of these statistics, the average reading time in a country like India is 10 hours per week, in Thailand it is 9 hours and 24 minutes, and in China it is 8 hours. Unfortunately, in Iran, this number has been reported as 1 hour and 54 minutes.