Abdorrahim Jafari

Jafari was born in Tehran on 3 November 1919. His father, a peddlar, deserted his mother soon after his birth and his mother brought him up as a single mother who supported her family by working as a weaver.

At the age of twelve, after just five years of elementary school, he began his first job, as "a janitor and messenger boy in a print shop". Having gradually learned how to operate the printing press, he was appointed as foreman. Conditions were hard in the workplace with long hours and delays in being paid.

He married Seddiga Elmi, the daughter of his employer. During World War II, he served for two years as a conscript.

After the war and a bout of typhoid fever he found that he had lost his job in the printing firm. This forced him to launch into business for himself, first as a grocer and then in the book trade. Having no capital he rented a small space in front of Tehran's central mosque where he would offer for sale a small display of books on assignment. After a few months he moved to a small room in Nasser Khosro (Naser Khosrow) Street in the heart of the city's Grand Bazaar district where he began publishing books.