TEHRAN – An anthology of short stories from 14 contemporary Iranian writers has been published in Arabic in a book by the Shahriar Publishing House in Iraq.

Entitled “Wind Elegy”, the book has been translated into Arabic by Hossein Torfi Alivi.

“My Chinese Doll” by Hushang Golshiri, “Broken Column” by Ahmad Mahmud, “Wind Elegy” by Abutorab Khosravi, “Two Passengers” by Mohammadreza Safdari, “Shark” by Adnan Ghariqi and “Story of Rahman” by Hossein Mortezaian Abkenar are among the stories. 

The author and instructor, Keyhan Khanjani, has written an introduction to the book, which briefly reviews a portion of the history of Persian literature.

“Several years after the Constitutional Movement in Iran in 1921, three books were published in the three fields of poetry, theater and fiction. The books are ‘Pale Story’ a selection of poetry by Nima Yushij, the play ‘Jafar Khan Has Returned from the West’ by Jafar Moqaddam and short stories ‘Once Upon A Time’ by Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh,” he wrote.

“But modernism in Persian story writing begins with Sadeq Hedayat and his books, because of his journey to France and his encounter with modern works. He was impressed by Western art and localized his stories, which were a big event in Persian story writing,” he added. 

“After Sadeq Hedayat, great fiction writers flourished in the Persian language such as Sadeq Chubak, Ebrahim Golestan, Gholam-Hossein Saedi and Hushang Golshiri. In post-revolution Iran, despite the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, adverse economic conditions and the issue of migration, there was a breakthrough in story writing with good stories from writers such as Bijan Bijari, Goli Taraqqi, Mohammadreza Safdari, Samad Taheri and Ali Khodai,” he noted.

“If Persian authors write only one short story a year, the literature will have embraced a precious treasure, and surely short stories from West Asia and even the world without short stories by Iranian authors is incomplete,” he stated.

Photo: Cover of “Wind Elegy”, an Arabic anthology of short stories by Iranian contemporary writers.

RM/MMS/YAW