Revisiting Sadeq Hedayat's Blind Owl: Writings on a Modern Persian Novel

Revisiting Sadeq Hedayat's Blind Owl: Writings on a Modern Persian Novel is a commemorative volume of thirteen scholarly articles on the Persian novel Buf-e-Kur (Blind Owl) by Sadeq Hedayat (1903-51). Scholars of Persian studies have long endeavoured to bring this complex novel, written in a unique form and structure, into a simple narrative for afficionados of modern Persian fiction. Thus, the present volume is a 'literary manifesto', presenting perspectives on the novel and the writer from historical, cultural, psychoanalytical, cinematic, artistic, translational, and poetic viewpoints. Drawing upon continued Indo-Iranian relations when Burzoe translated the Panchatantra into Pahlavi in 570 ad to when Hedayat wrote his masterpiece during his India sojourn in 1937, the chapters presented here explore a number of topics: from critiques of translations of the novel into three Indian languages (Bengali, Hindi, and Malayalam) to discussions regarding the compatibility of the novel with cinema and the interface of the novel with Hedayat's sketches and paintings. The volume also offers an analogical study of the thought processes of Ghalib and Hedayat, demonstratingthe resonance between great minds. Read more