Founded in Maryland in 1979, Ibex Publishers is an independent scholarly and trade press. We publish books mainly in English and Persian. Our mission is to introduce the language, literature, history, art, religion, and other aspects of the culture of the Persian speaking-world (Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) to the rest of the world. Our textbooks are being used to teach Persian (also called Farsi, Dari or Tajiki) in many schools and universities in America and Europe. Our customers range from academics, students, and researchers to children beginning to learn the language of their heritage.
Our beginning.
After a successful diplomatic career came to a sudden end in 1979, Nasser and Parvaneh Shirzad started a new enterprise with their local grocery store named Dokan in Bethesda, Maryland. They offered many items fellow Iranians had a hard time finding anywhere else and soon became the go-to place for the best that Persian culture had to offer. As the small book section in the store kept growing, they decided to shift their focus fully to bookselling and founded their independent book store, Iran Books. Soon it attracted attention from authors looking to publish their work on Persian-related subjects with a specialized publisher.
Their son Farhad Shirzad, a historian and political scientist, took over the publishing section and started Ibex Publishers.
The ibex
Our logo is inspired by depictions of the ibex, a species of wild goat, in ancient Middle Eastern cultures. The phonetic similarity of its name to that of our physical book store, Iran Books, has led us to adopt the name Ibex for our publishing house.