Author Sues Nobel Winner Shirin Ebadi

By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 8/27/2007 8:20:00 AM

Canadian author Shahir Shahidsaless is suing the Nobel Prize winner and Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi. Shahidsaless says Ebadi went back on her word regarding getting a publisher for a book the two had coauthored after Ebadi was warned by her publisher and agent that the book’s publication might spoil sales of her other books. Ebadi’s most recent book is Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope, which Random House published in May 2006.

The AP reports that Canadian resident Shahir Shahidsaless and his wife, Faranak Shakoori, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, seeking at least $1.3 million to cover the cost of writing a book with Ebadi that remains unpublished.

According to the lawsuit, Shahidsaless spent 18 months working on the book, A Useful Enemy. Shahidsaless says Ebadi suggested in a November 2004 telephone call that they co-write a book in response to Samuel Huntington's clash of civilizations theory, which some have used to argue that Islamic and Western societies are culturally incompatible.

The lawsuit says Ebadi specified themes and chapters for the book, and that Shahidsaless and Ebadi regularly spoke about the book’s content and style. Shahidsaless says Ebadi told him of her contract with Random for Iran Awakening in January 2006 and that the two agreed that Ebadi would approach Random and ask them to publish the co-written book for a $1-million advance.

But in July 2006, says Shahidsaless, Ebadi e-mailed Shahidsaless saying her agent, Wendy Strothman, and Random had recommended she not publish the book because it would damage sales of her future books, the lawsuit said. In a later e-mail, Ebadi referred to self-interested political motivations, according to the lawsuit, as her reason for breaching the agreement with Shahidsaless to publish the book as a coauthor.

Shahidsaless is seeking at least $1 million because A Useful Enemy was not published and because he has not received the fame 9that would have enabled him to publish other books. He and his wife also seek an additional $300,000 for researching, writing, typing and translating the book.

Random House and Strothman did not return PW’s calls for comment by press time.