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The Myth of Creation
The Myth of Creation [Afsaneh-ye Afarinesh] is one of the earliest works by Iran's best-known twentieth-century writer, Sadeq Hedayat, whose popularity outside Iran is due mostly to his short novel, The Blind Owl. Little has been written in critical literature about this work, perhaps because critics find the subject matter too sensitive for its generally Jewish, Christian and Moslem audiences. Given the general plot line of this story, Hedayat demonstrates an open skepticism towards the three major Middle Eastern religions, particularly Islam, by casting the characters of his story in the form of puppets. This suggests that even the "creator," as perceived by these three religions, is a mere puppet controlled by unseen hands.
The Politics of Writing in Iran
Emerging in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a secular activity, Persian literature acquired its own modernity by redefining past aesthetic practices of identity and history. By analyzing selected work of major pre- and post-revolutionary literary figures, Talattof shows how Persian literary history has not been an integrated continuum but a series of distinct episodic movements shaped by shifting ideologies. Drawing on western concepts, modern Persian literature has responded to changing social and political conditions through complex strategies of metaphorical and allegorical representations that both construct and denounce cultural continuities. The book provides a unique contribution in that it draws on texts that demonstrate close affinity to such diverse ideologies as modernism, Marxism, feminism, and Islam. Each ideological standard has influenced the form, characterization, and figurative language of literary texts as well as setting the criteria for literary criticism and determining which issues are to be the focus of literary journals.
Sadeq Hedayat
Sadeq Hedayat is the most famous and the most enigmatic Iranian writer of the 20th century. This book is the first comprehensive study of Hedayat's life and works set against the background of literary and political developments in a rapidly changing Iran over the first half of the 20th century. Katouzian discusses Hedayat's life and times and the literary and political circles with which he was associated. But he also emphasises the uniqueness and universality of his ideas that have both influenced and set Hedayat apart from other Iranian writers of the period and that have given him a mystique that has been instrumental in his posthumous success with acclaimed works such as The Blind Owl. This second edition is fully revised and updated to reflect on recent debates and scholarship on Sadeq Hadeyat.
The Blind Owl
Widely regarded as Sadegh Hedayat's masterpiece, the Blind Owl is the most important work of literature to come out of Iran in the past century. On the surface this work seems to be a tale of doomed love, but with the turning of each page basic facts become obscure and the reader soon realizes this book is much more than a love story. Although the Blind Owl has been compared to the works of the Kafka, Rilke and Poe, this work defies categorization. Lescot's French translation made the Blind Owl world-famous, while D.P. Costello's English translation made it largely accessible. Sadly, this work has yet to find its way into the English pantheon of Classics. This 75th anniversary edition, trans...
The Making of Modern Iran
This collection of essays, by a distinguished group of specialists, offers a new and exciting interpretation of Riza Shah's Iran. A period of key importance, the years between 1921-1941 have, until now, remained relatively neglected. Recently, however, there has been a marked revival of interest in the history of these two decades and this collection brings together some of the best of this recent new scholarship. Illustrating the diversity and complexity of interpretations to which contemporary scholarship has given rise, the collection looks at both the high politics of the new state and at 'history from below', examining some of the fierce controversies which have arisen surrounding such issues as the gender politics of the new regime, the nature of its nationalism, and its treatment of minorities.
The Making of Persianate Modernity
Traces the emergence of literary history, showing how Iranians and South Asians drew from their shared heritage to produce a 'Persianate modernity'.
Modern Persian Prose Literature
This 1966 book provides a series of concise, accessible essays reflecting on the development of Persian fiction during the modern period. The structure of the text is broadly chronological, with chapters allocated to key authors, literary movements, and social changes. This is a valuable volume for anyone interested in Persian literature.
Iranian Folk Narrative
For centuries Iran hosted numerous travellers and visitors of diverse nationalities and backgrounds. Many of these travellers left behind documents in which they recorded their observations during their residence in Iran, and these embody a vast range of firsthand information about the land and its people at different periods of time. This book, first published in 1990, takes as its subjects the nature and history of Iranian folk narrative scholarship. The contributions of travellers are given their due recognition as important source documents.
Authors of the Early to mid-20th Century
Starting at the dawn of the 20th century, writers began experimenting with literary styles as never before. As perhaps the most far-reaching movement, Modernism swept across both the United States and Europe and has been embodied in the works of such writers as Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and T.S. Eliot. The existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, Samuel Becketts absurdist writings, and the range of literary output from around the world also reflect the spirit of the period. The lives and works of these and other authors from across the globe are surveyed in this absorbing volume.
