Slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s jail dairy at the stall in Srinagar curing the Chinar Book Festival. Photo credit: Peerzada Ashiq
As a spin-off of the ongoing war between Iran and the U.S., slain Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s jail diary is selling like hot cakes at the book festival in Srinagar.
Buyers are jostling at the stall set up by the Mutahhari Fikri Wa Saqafati Markaz at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) on the banks of the Dal Lake, with peak footfall of 20,000 visitors a day. Many local Shia clerics are recording videos on buying these books for social media platforms.
The front desk of the stall pavilion has stacks of books authored by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the architect of the 1979 Iranian revolution, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, who was killed in a joint attack of the Israel and the U.S. on February 28 this year.
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“Khamenei’s jail diary, ‘Cell No. 14’, has evoked a huge response. We are selling dozens of copies every day. We had a buyer who took 60 copies of it from the Chenab Valley of J&K,” said a salesman at the stall.
The ongoing war between Iran and the U.S. has generated a lot of interest among readers in Kashmir to know about the spiritual leadership of Iran, which has shaped the country in the past four decades.
“’Cell No. 14’ is the autobiography of Khamenei. It gives a peek into what revolutionaries in Iran suffered under the Shah regime. It provides a context to understand the Iranian government and its resolve,” said Rashid Ahmad, a student of Kashmir University (KU).
The appeal of Iranian literature is not limited to Shia readers of Kashmir, with Sunnis also turning up at the stall and showing interest in their writings. “Reading Iranian literature, especially the shapers of modern-day Iran, is essential to know how the country has married democracy and the clergy into one,” said Faiz Khan, a Political Science student.
Several local politicians and bureaucrats also purchased the autobiographies and books authored by the Iranian leaders from the stall, said another salesman.
It’s for the first time that Shia publishers have set up several stalls at the third edition of the Chinar Book Festival organised by the National Book Trust (NBT), which started on July 18 and will conclude on July 26.
“We had a very good response this year. Our peak footfall was more than 20,000 a day,” said Dr. Amit Wanchoo, chief convener of the Chinar Book Festival.
The nine-day festival, which J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha inaugurated, saw over 200 publishers and book exhibitors displaying a range of books in English, Urdu, Kashmiri, Hindi, and several other Indian languages.
However, the book fair was not out of the police scanner this year, in the wake of two pro-separatists making it to the school education department in J&K. Officials said all the publishers were asked to furnish the list of books and submit records on a daily basis so that no anti-India or pro-separatists were displayed in the stalls.
Last year, 25 books authored by renowned writers like Christopher Snedden, A.G. Noorani, Sumantra Bose, Ayesha Jalal, Sugata Bose, Arundhati Roy, Stephen P Cohen, Anuradha Bhasin, Seema Qazi etc, were banned in J&K for “exciting secession, endangering the integrity of India” and “propagating false narrative and secessionism in J&K”.
Published – July 26, 2026 01:30 am IST
