The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd begins with the assassination of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the highly cultivated Iranian Kurdish leader killed in 1989 while negotiating a peace accord for his people with Iran's government emissaries in Vienna. Beloved by his people, Ghassemlou had been a visionary and cultivated leader of the Iranian Kurdish revolutionary movement who relentlessly pursued the ideals of democracy for his nation. For ten years, Ghassemlou led the opposition movement to the theocratic regime of Ayatollah Khomeini. This book tells his story.

Soon after his murder, suspicion was directed toward Iran; yet no one was ever tried or punished for the crime. Unanswered questions remain to this day. "This portrait is a political whodunit, a truer-than-life reenactment of a destiny, and a journey into a trap—in an anonymous apartment in Vienna in 1989."
—Jean-Marc Illouz, senior foreign correspondent, France2 TV News, Paris

"This book gives justice to the personality and actions of one of the most remarkable and democratic leaders of a national movement of the past century." —Gérard Chaliand, author of People without a Country: Kurds and Kurdistan

Winner 2011
London Book Festival
Biography/Autobiography

Finalist 2011
International Book Awards
Biography General