Authors featured in the collection Stories from Iran: A Chicago Anthology

Authors featured in the collection Stories from Iran: A Chicago Anthology

    • Farahnaz Abbasi began her writing career with the publication of a short story called Ayeneh (Mirror) in an early 1988 issue of the Tehran literary journal Âdineh. Her first collection of stories was published in 2000 as Râz-e sar be-moh.

 

    • Jalal Al-e Ahmad, 1923—-1969
      The son of a Shi’i Muslim cleric, Jalal Al-e Ahmad was born and raised in Tehran. He pursued formal education there to the doctora dissertation stage in Persian literature at Tehran University. Al-e Ahmad’s first collection of short stories, Did-o bâzdid (Exchange of visits), appeared in 1946. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Bozorg Alavi, 1904–-1996
      Born in Tehran and educated in Germany, Bozorg Alavi is the most famous “leftist” Iranian writer. He returned to Iran in the early 1930s, taught, and published a volume of short stories called Chamedân (The suitcase, 1934), for which G.M. Wickens provides plot summaries in Bozorg Alavi’s Portmanteau, University of Toronto Quarterly 29 (1960). (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Mahshid Amir-Shahi, 1940–-
      Born into a well-to-do family from Qazvin, Mahshid Amir-Shahi attended secondary school and college in England, and received an M.A. in physics from Oxford. But once back in Iran, she embarked on a career of writing children’s and other stories and producing translations, among them E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, James Thurber’s Legends from Our Times, and P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Hushang Ashurzadeh
      Hushang Ashurzadeh published two stories in Dâstânhâ-ye now (New stories, 1987), a collection compiled by established author Jamal Mir-Sadeqi, who points out in his preface that the stories are mostly by writers not yet forty years of age. Ashurzadeh thus signals the continued and increasing popularity of short stories in Iran today and the opportunities open to younger writers to publish their work. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Beh’azin, 1915-
      Translator, fiction writer, and political activist Mahmud E’temadzadeh, better known by his pen name Beh’azin, was born and raised in Rasht. After high school, he traveled to France on a government scholarship to study engineering. Upon his return to Iran in 1938, he worked in the Iranian Navy and the Ministry of Education, then got involved in the Tudeh Party, and subsequently pursued a career in translation from French into Persian.(extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Simin Daneshvar, 1921-
      The daughter of a physician, Iranian fiction writer and literary translator Simin Daneshvar was born in Shiraz. After high school, she moved with her family to Tehran. Daneshvar worked there for Radio Tehran and a newspaper called Iran and completed a doctoral degree in Persian literature at Tehran University. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Mahmud Dowlatabadi, 1940–-
      Born in the Khurasan village of Dowlatabad (near Sabzavar), shortstory writer and novelist Mahmud Dowlatabadi was the most prominent Iranian novelist of the 1980s. Self-educated and forced to work from childhood, Dowlatabadi spent part of his younger adult years as a stage actor in Tehran. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Nader Ebrahimi, 1936–-
      A prolific short story writer during the 1960s, Nader Ebrahimi was born in Tehran and raised there and in Gorgan. He graduated with a degree in English from Tehran University, where he also attended law school. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Amin Faqiri, 1944–-
      Born and raised in Shiraz, Amin Faqiri began writing when was nineteen, concentrating on poetry. He served in the Iranian Literacy Corps in the mid-1960s as a teacher and community developer in various rural communities in Kerman and Fars provinces. That experience inspired Faqiri’s focus in his writing on specific rural Iranian settings and issues. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Esma’il Fasih, 1935–-
      An active novelist and short-story writer since the late 1960s, Esma’il Fasih was born and raised in Tehran. In 1956 he traveled to the United States to attend college. With degrees in English literature and science, he returned to Iran and in 1963 began seventeen years’ employment with the National Iranian Oil Company, most of it teaching at the Abadan Institute of Technology. Forced into retirement in 1981, Fasih now lives with his family in Tehran and occasionally serves as a technical consultant to the NIOC. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Hushang Golshiri, 1937-2000
      Fiction writer, critic and editor Hushang Golshiri was born in Isfahan and raised in Abadan, one of a large family of modest circumstances. From 1955–74, he lived in Isfahan, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in Persian at the University of Isfahan and taught elementary and high school there and in surrounding towns.(extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • M. A. Jamalzadeh, 1892-1997
      Sayyid Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh was born in Isfahan to a religious family of Shi’i Muslim clerics. Shortly before the execution of his reformist preacher father in 1908, Jamalzadeh went to Beirut and then to France and Switzerland to complete his education. From 1916 to 1930, he worked for the Iranian Embassy in Berlin. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Nasim Khaksar, 1944–-
      Expatriate short-story writer and political activist, Nasim Khaksa was born and raised in Abadan. He graduated from the Institute of Higher Education in Tehran with a degree in teacher education and began literary activity with the publication of short stories from the late 1960s. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Ahmad Mahmud, 1930-
      Ahmad Mahmud is the pen name of major writer of fiction Ahmad E’ta, who was born and raised in Khuzistan. In his youth he worked as a day laborer and truck driver, and suffered imprisonment for leftist political views and oppositionist activities. (ext. biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Jamal Mir-Sadeqi, 1933–-
      Born and raised in Tehran, Jamal Mir-Sadeqi started teaching immediately after high school and while pursuing an undergraduate degree in Persian literature at Tehran University. Besides teaching, his professional career has included librarianship and documentation center work in Tehran. He is married to the poet and critic Maymanat Mir-Sadeqi (b. 1937). (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Shahrnush Parsipur, 1946-
      The daughter of an attorney in the Justice Ministry originally from Shiraz, Shahrnush Parsipur was born and raised in Tehran, studied Chinese culture in France from 1976-79, and graduated from the Faculty of Letters at Tehran University. Her first book was Tupak-e qermez (The little red ball, 1969), a story for young people. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Moniru Ravanipur, 1954–-
      Short-story writer and novelist Moniru Ravanipur was born in the village of Jofreh and raised in the provincial capital Shiraz. She completed an undergraduate degree in psychology at Shiraz University. Ravanipur’s first book was a collection of nine short stories called Kanizu (1989, reprinted in 2001). In the winter of 1989, Ravanipur published her first novel, Ahl-e Gharq (The people of Gharq). (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Bahram Sadeqi, 1936–-1986
      Born in Najafabad, Bahram Sadeqi graduated from medical school at Tehran University in 1967. He began publishing stories in 1956 in Sokhan magazine (1942–79). In 1958–59 Sadeqi served on the literary board of Sadaf magazine, but was otherwise disinclined to participate in activities of the Tehran literary crowd. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Gholam Hosayn Sa’edi, 1935–-1985
      Writer of fiction, dramatist (under the pen name Gowhar Morad), editor, and political activist Gholam Hosayn Sa’edi was born and raised in Tabriz of an educated Azerbaijani Turkish family. He graduated from the medical school at Tehran University, specializing in psychiatry. For most of his career as a physician he was in general practice in South Tehran, charging his patients whatever they could afford, that being in keeping with older Iranian tradition. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Goli Taraqqi, 1939–-
      The daughter of an editor, publisher, and member of the Iranian Parliament, Zohreh (Goli) Taraqqi-Moghadam was born and raised in Tehran. She attended college in the United States, returning to Iran with a degree in philosophy in 1961. She obtained a master’s degree from Tehran University in 1967. During the 1960s Taraqqi served as an international relations specialist for the Plan Organization in Tehran and began publishing short stories, first in Andisheh va honar in 1965. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Fereydun Tonokaboni, 1937–-
      From the Caspian littoral town of Tonokabon, Fereydun Tonokaboni has university training in Persian literature and is a teacher by profession. His first publication was a novella called Mardi dar qafas (A man in a cage, 1961). Then followed a steady output of short stories. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Ebrahim Golestan, 1922–-
      From a family of Shi’i Muslim clerics, Ebrahim Golestan was born and raised in Shiraz, where his father served as mayor for a time and ran a newspaper from which the family took its name. After high school, Golestan briefly attended Tehran University and entered into the employ of the National Iranian Oil Company. (extended biography as a pdf file)

 

    • Sadeq Chubak, 1916–-1998
      Short-story writer and novelist Sadeq Chubak was born in Bushire, where his father was a prominent bazaar merchant. After elementary schooling in his home town, Chubak attended secondary school in Shiraz, where his family had moved. He later graduated from Alborz College high school in Tehran, and became a teacher. During World War II Chubak served as an English translator for the Iranian General Staff in Tehran. (extended biography as a pdf file)