She is the author of four books, including the bestselling Lipstick Jihad[2] and Guest House for Young Widows,[3] which was shortlisted for numerous prizes.

She travelled in the convoy of Ayatollah Baqer al-Hakim from Tehran through Najaf, as the Shia Iraqi opposition in exile returned to the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The book was translated into over twenty languages, and recounts Ebadi's life story as Iran's first female judge, and her support of a revolution that stripped her of that role.

Through stories of meeting underground musicians, race car drivers, young radicals, and scholars, she explores "the cultural identity crisis and class frustration that pits Iran's next generation against the Islamic system".

In 2014, Moaveni joined journalism faculty at Kingston University[11] and taught as Senior Lecturer, while freelance reporting for Foreign Policy,[12] and The Financial Times.

[13] In late 2015, she published a front-page story in The New York Times on Syrian women defectors from the Islamic State[14] that was a finalist for a Pulitzer in International Reporting.

The following year, she travelled again to northeast Syria to report in Al-Hol and Al-Roj detention camps, speaking to women and children formerly affiliated with the Islamic State.