TEHRAN – Tokyo-based nomadic culture center PAO Compound is working on the Japanese translation of “The Stories of the Truthful” (“Dastan-e Rastan”) by Martyr Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari.

The Japanese translation of the book will come out in the near future based on an agreement signed between PAO Compound director of Takuji Yasunaka and Hossein Divsalar, the Iranian cultural attaché in Tokyo, the Iranian Cultural Center in Tokyo announced in a press release published on Thursday.

“The Stories of the Truthful”, which is a collection of short stories about Prophet Muhammad (S) and his household, has been rendered into many languages, including Urdu, Armenian and Uzbek.

The book, which was selected as the book of the year in 1965 by UNESCO, was published in Luganda, a Bantu language spoken in the African Great Lakes region in May 2020.

Born in 1920, Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari was among the major Iranian ideologists. His innovative theories played a major role in clarifying the Islamic ideology for the younger generation.

PAO Compound has previously published several other books by Iranian writers in Japanese.

In early January the Iranian Cultural Center in Tokyo announced the publication by PAO of “Qalishuyan” about the ritual of washing a carpet in the Iranian town of Mashhad-e Ardahal.

The book by the renowned Iranian scholar Ali Bolukbashi has been translated into Japanese by Yumiko Honda.

Based on the agreement, the PAO Compound plans to publish in Japanese in the near future “Immigrant from the Land of the Sun”, which is a memoir of Koniko Yamamura, the mother of soldier Mohammad Babai who was martyred in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

The Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo has also recently published a book on Iranian bazaars, stores and caravanserais dating back to the Qajar period (1789-1925).

The book entitled “Bazaars, Stores and Caravanserais in the Documents from Qajar Iran” has been authored by Tokyo-based Iranian scholar Hashem Rajabzadeh with contributions from the Japanese expert of Iranian studies, Kinji Eura.

Photo: Front cover of the Persian edition of “The Stories of the Truthful” (“Dastan-e Rastan”).

MMS/YAW