THREE ORIGINAL ORIGINALS IN PERSIAN POETRY,FICTION AND MODERN LITERATURE
forugh farokhzad,nima yushij,sadegh hedayat,manuchehr atashi,Dr bahram sadeghi
It's been years since the lonely summer of 1331/1952 that I was getting ready to go to high school at age 11.
At that time,every one was advising me not to meet Sadegh Hedayat in his writings.He was a jerk. A total taboo.He was a pervert that made you masturbate and ruin your life .And you end up committing suicide by reading his books.BUF KUR/BLIND OWL was particularly like a big sin,and if you touch it,you are burned.
You are done.You are gone to hell.
It wa that typical hot and humid summer afternoon in Sari,Mazandaran that when I heard my dad started snoring,when he took off a big lunch spread,after work,and ceded to a nap,that I pulled Buf kur out of his library in our kitchen-warehouse and was absorbed by its ambiance in a bombardment of words and metaphors.
With Jahangir ,my buddy and my main rival in school,we were exchanging books to that point.He was more on philosophy and I was on poetry and stories like books by Heidar Reghabi, and Mehdi Hamidi Shirazi,the poets of those days,Mohamadali Jamalzadeh,Mosta'an,Javad Fazel,Renee of Chateau Briand,Werter of Gothoe among others.,until one day Jahangir came and said to me:
You should read Raha of Fereidun Tavallali.This guy is fantastic.
And he was darn Right.
Tavallali was different before I start reading Nima,Shamlu,Forugh and others.
But Hedayat was always a temptation.
and that hot and humid afternoon in the summer of Sari,Mazandaran he contained me.
There was not a single year,since then that I did not go back to visit Sadegh Hedayat and his masterpiece:Blind owl,in Farsi and sometimew lately in English or French,and each time I found a differnt writer with different characters ,telling different stories.
And each time I said to myself:This is what is call ORIGINALITY,
AS I'VE SEEN IT WITH WORKS OF NIMA AND FORUGH FAROKHZAD.
I never forget once in Tehran,when Hedayat's book went on sale for one Tuman each.,or some for 5 to 7 rials,I bought a bunch of them in Amir Kabir Bookstore of Mokhberodoleh Square and started reading Buf Kur while wlking home and finish it by the end of Shahreza Avenue,before Fuzieh Square.
And this was probably my 6 0r 7th time when just acquired high school diploma and entering
Tehran University,
while teaching in Omidi Elementary School and Writing for Cinema Magazine and other publications,
Anyways,
Somehow with Manuchehr Atashi,at the start of his carrier,
especially with AHANG DIGAR/ANOTHER SONG,
Dr Taghi Modarressi's Yakolia
and Dr Bahram Sadeghi with his MALAKUT,
or Dr Gholamhossein Saedi's plays
now I see Hedayat with Nima and Forugh as the most originals of originals in our poetry and literature.
So much for so much.
Let's see how I look at nimahedayatforugh,Atashi and Sadeghi as
IRANIAN ORIGINALS.
.....
