A new English translation of arguably the most famous twentieth-century Persian novel A Penguin Classic Written by one of the greatest Iranian writers of the twentieth century, Blind Owl tells a three-part story of a pen-case painter, an isolated narrator with a fragile relationship with time and reality. In part one, he relates his own story in the first person, in a string of hazy, dreamlike recollections fueled by opium and alcohol. He spends time painting the covers of pen cases only to paint the exact same scene- an old man wearing a cape and turban sitting under a cypress tree, separated by a small stream from a beautiful woman in black who is bending down to offer him a water lily. The novel transitions to a one-page part two where readers find the narrator covered in blood and waiting for the police to arrest him. Part three gives readers a glimpse into the grim realities that unlock the mysteries of the first part. Influenced by European writers like Kafka and de Maupassant, Hedayat also reveals a strong affinity with Dostoevsky. The protagonist of Blind Owl suffers from the brain fever characteristic of many of Dostoevsky's heroes, such as Crime and Punishment's Raskolnikov. Both characters are also isolated in a tomb-like room, surrounded by deafening echoes of disturbed thoughts. Both are guilty of a horrible crime and paranoid of being arrested by the police at any moment. But whereas Raskolnikov has intellectually convinced himself that he must commit the crime for the greater good, the pen-case painter acts on instinct and seems oddly unaware of what he has done.

Blind Owl

Literature & Fiction

Hedayat, Sadeq

Literary

Penguin Classics

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 Myth of Creation: A Puppet Show in Three Acts (Bibliotheca Iranica: Performing Arts Series)

History & Criticism

Mazda Pub

Following a disjointed, vision-like structure, The Blind Owl is the nightmarish exploration of the psyche of a madman. The narrator is an ailing, solitary misanthrope who suffers from hallucinations, and his dreamlike tale is layered, circular, driven by its own demented logic, and punctuated with macabre and surreal episodes such as the discovery of a mutilated corpse, and a bizarre competition in which two men are locked in a dungeon-like room with a cobra. Initially banned in the author's native Iran, the novel first appeared in Tehran in 1941 and became a bestseller. Full of powerful symbolism and terrifying imagery, this dark novella is Hedayat's masterpiece.

The Blind Owl

World Literature

Alma Classics

Three Drops of Blood

One of the most outstanding Persian writers of the last century is represented in this unique collection of stories, most appearing here for the first time in English This collection of short stories, previously unpublished in English, displays the disturbing and evocative force of Hedayats writing, and confirms his place in the literary canon. They depict a world of revelation, uncanny similarity, grotesquery, and insanity. The title story, Three Drops of Blood, follows the protagonists increasingly unstable mental state through the repeated occurrence of three drops of blood, while Hadji Murat depicts an almost Joycean epiphany in classically understated terms, as a man mistakes another woman for his wife. These are stories that, though set in a distinctive milieu, deal with univers

Rencontres avec Sadegh Hedayat

Farzaneh, Maxime-Féri

CORTI

Die blinde Eule

Goethe + Hafis

La lechuza ciega (Libros Del Tiempo / Time Books) (Spanish Edition)

Siruela

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Books by Hedayat, Sadeq