Modern Western fictional genres, particularly the short story, are relatively new in Persian Literature. The writing of Persian short stories began in 1921 with the publication in Berlin of Yeki bud yeki nabud (Once upon a time), a collection of six stories written by M. A. Jamalzadeh during the previous four to five years and printed in Kaveh, a Persian monthly magazine published by a group of distinguished Iranian scholars in Berlin. In these stories Jamalzadeh had criticized the social and political conditions of his homeland in a charming style replete with colloquial words and idiomatic expressions. However, it was not the stylistic quality of its language, nor even the author's critical views, that made this little volume a real novelty. Both characteristics had already appeared several years earlier in certain journalistic writings of the time, most notably in Charand-parand (Balderdash), a series of satirical articles by the encyclopedist A. A. Dehkhoda. The Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11 and the subsequent period of relative political freedom had prepared the ground for the mushrooming of countless newspapers filled with open attacks on the government and the country's established institutions. It was rather the charming plots of the short stories in the garb of an alien form that captivated readers' minds and marked the birth of the new genre in Persian literature. Jamalzadeh, who by then had spent over ten years in Europe, was well aware of the need for a radical departure from the norms and traditions of classical Persian prose.

The reaction at home to this rather harmless volume was nevertheless tumultuous, particularly in the clerical circles, not unlike the uproar raised against Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses in recent years. Eventually, however, it won the hearts of its Iranian readers and is recognized as the turning point in the history of Persian prose, with Jamalzadeh himself being hailed as the pioneer of modernistic fiction in Persian.

Although the Constitutional Revolution failed to fulfill its promise to usher in an era of political freedom and social justice, it did break many old barriers and set the history of Iran on a new course of radical changes. It marked the beginning of an unending struggle which even now, after eight decades, is far from having achieved its ultimate goals. And yet, it did provide the right atmosphere for the gradual appearance of a new cultural awareness. It succeeded in making headway for a cultural revolution, even though the political one continued to show few, if any, signs of permanent success.

Jamalzadeh (b. 1892), the son of a politically engaged, liberal nineteenth-century preacher, was too deeply rooted in his background traditions to be able to shake them off completely. His predilection for opulence in vocabulary deprived his later stories of technical sophistication, rendered his characters as lifeless figures, and stopped his plots from developing smoothly and naturally. The role of the true founder of the genre in Persian was reserved for Sadeq Hedayat (1903-51), the son of an aristocratic family who had spent four years studying in France. Upon his return to Iran in 1930, he began a period of hectic literary activity. Within the span of seven years he published three volumes of short stories, one volume of pungent satirical sketches called Qaziyeh, a longer piece of fiction of devastatingly critical purport called Alaviyeh Khanom, and a short novel, Buf-e kur (The blind owl). The last, more than anything else, has contributed to his reputation, both in Iran and the West, as the most pessimistic and lonely figure in the history of Persian literature.

This remarkable outburst of creative writing, entirely during the period of Reza Shah's dictatorial rule, slackened, oddly enough, in the years of unprecedented political freedom that followed upon the abdication of the Shah in 1941 and ended, for Hedayat, with his suicide in Paris in 1951. One last volume of short stories, several more sketches (Qaziyeh), and one more novelette, titled Haji Aqa, were the only pieces of fiction published by Hedayat during those ten years. Social and religious conditions were never favorable for the publication of another major piece of satirical writing, Tup-e morvari (The pearl cannon), which has been printed by Iranian scholars only in exile and only since the Islamic Revolution.

Hedayat was intimately familiar with and infatuated by European literature, particularly the decadent trends of the post-World War I period. Hopelessly skeptical, he found no attraction in life and remained chronically despondent and obsessed with death, which is present almost everywhere in his fiction. In The Blind Owl Hedayat has presented an enigmatic, multifaceted, psychological type of story which escapes the dimension of time and mingles the pseudo-reality of life and dreams in the frame of an unusual structure that is hard to follow. Passionately attracted to Khayyam, he wrote a lengthy essay on the Ruba'iyat which was a real breakthrough in the study of that poet. He also felt an affinity with Kafka, whose Metamorphosis he translated into Persian. His nostalgic remembrance of Persia's ancient glory did not minimize the contempt he felt for the corrupt institutions and degenerate masses of his own people, nor was the spark of hope which the leftist ideology may have kindled in his heart any more than a furtive flirting with a rapidly spreading vogue of the time.

The turbulent political conditions of Iran during the forties, in no small part the result of the Allied occupation of the country, was accompanied by a high rate of inflation and economic ruin. These conditions favored the flourishing of the Marxist Tudeh party, which attracted large segments of the intelligentsia, including some prominent poets and writers. Political instability and chaotic economic conditions kept the country in turmoil, with strikes and demonstrations, stimulated by conflicting parties, paralyzing the normal flow of activities in schools and factories. The struggle to deliver the nation from the grip of poverty, attempts at stopping foreign manipulations and interference in the internal affairs of the country, and the desire to establish the rule of law and democracy finally crystallized in the nationalistic movement of the old aristocratic statesman, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq, who enjoyed the overwhelming support of the masses, including both the Communists and the traditional classes of merchants and professionals.

The overthrow of Mosaddeq in August 1953 practically ended a period of roughly twelve years during which poets and writers felt free to speak their minds and criticize all and any of the established institutions. During the next quarter of a century, 1953-78, freedom of expression was curtailed and censorship plunged writers and poets into a state of confusion. They were forced either to avoid treating sensitive subjects openly and to resort instead to a veiled style of symbols and allegories, or else to risk the consequences of disregard for the rules and provocations of the state authorities. The resulting conflict led to hostile confrontations between writers and the government, causing years of enforced restrictions, suffering, and bitterness. Admirable acts of courage in resisting state pressure and a determination to win freedom of expression were common. They served the youth as models of commitment and supplied the writers with fresh subjects. The struggle, however, led a group of so-called engag¦ writers to employ the wrong means for the right ends. In order to undermine the credibility of the state authorities they used the tactics of lying and falsifying the facts, spreading fabricated rumors, denouncing what deserved approval and support, and making common cause with individuals and circles whom the intelligentsia themselves had long since declared reactionary and antiquated. This deplorable state of affairs grew worse in the late fifties and continued for the next two decades as well.

During the period in question, 1941-53, several new talents of superior quality emerged. Oldest among them and belonging to the "first" generation was Bozorg Alavi (b. 1904), who had published his well-received first collection of short stories, Chamedan (The suitcase), in 1935 and had spent four years (1937-41) in prison because of his linkage with the nascent Marxist group of Tehran. Upon his release in 1941 Alavi resumed his literary activity with the publication of Varaq-pareh-ha-ye zendan (Scrap papers from prison), followed in 1951 by the novel Chashmhayash (Her eyes), and a third volume of short stories called Nameh-ha (Letters). Between 1953 and 1978, teaching as a professor at Humboldt University in East Berlin, he concentrated more on scholarly activities, authoring several books and translating from Persian into German and vice versa. In 1978, even before the Islamic Republic was established, Alavi reentered the literary scene with the publication of two collections of stories, Mirza and Div! Div! (Demon! demon!), as well as a small novel called Salariha. His forthcoming novel, Muryaneh (Termite), is in essence about the social and political ailments of Iran under the old regime.

Social concerns and attempts at discrediting the regime are obviously the thrust of Alavi's works, as well as of the fiction of another like-minded writer, Mahmud E'temadzadeh Beh'azin (b. 1915), whose novel Dokhtar-e ra'iyat (The serf's daughter), published in 1951, describes the plight of one such girl who struggles to liberate herself and join the working class. But no writer conscious of his art can afford to subdue the gift of his pen exclusively to mere propagation of a political ideology, repeating it in so many stories. Alavi's Her Eyes may owe its success to a degree to a romantic flavor that makes it enjoyable reading beyond the party line. Another trait of Alavi's fiction is his predilection for detective plots, evident in both Her Eyes and Mirza. As for Beh'azin, his Mohreh-ye mar (The snake stone),* is a fantastic tale which uses symbolic elements reminiscent of the Biblical story of Eve, the serpent, and the loss of paradise.

One of the brilliant novelists to emerge during the forties was Sadeq Chubak (b. 1916), whose first collection of short stories, called Khaymeh-shab-bazi (The puppet show, 1945), proved his power of naturalistic description combined with penetrating insight and a compact style. The level of sophistication displayed in this volume was maintained in his second book, Antari ke lutiyash mordeh bud (The baboon whose buffoon was dead, 1949). His characters represent neglected, downtrodden elements of society, which had hardly ever caught the attention of writers. A reticent person by nature, Chubak kept aloof from engagement in fashionable political activities. For over thirteen years he remained silent, until 1963 when his first famous novel, Tangsir, appeared, followed by two story collections, Ruz-e avval-e qabr (The first day in the grave) in 1965, and Cheragh-e akher (The last offering) in 1966. His second novel, Sang-e sabur (The patient stone) remains his last published work. Tangsir is the dramatic unfolding of the allegedly true story of a young man of Tangestan (the mountainous hinterland of Bushire) who, being cheated and robbed of his savings, takes the law into his own hands and kills, within a couple of hours, the five "respectable" swindlers before sailing away with his wife and child. The breathtaking linear development of this novel is in marked contrast with the multilevel, complicated, dense thought process and substance of The Patient Stone which, in its stream-of-consciousness style, illustrating the utter despair and misery of several characters, represents a major highlight in the history of Persian fiction.

Another influential writer to start his career in the forties was the more famous, hotly debated, and politically controversial figure of Jalal Al-e Ahmad (1923-69). Being enormously talented, energetic, and passionately interested in the fate of his nation's culture and political future, Al-e Ahmad played a decisive role in shaping the mind and actions of an entire generation of young intellectuals. Restless, impatient, and aggressive by nature, Al-e Ahmad showed the marks of his future career both as writer and social critic even in the stories of his first collection, Did-o bazdid (Exchange of visits, 1946). Three more volumes appeared between 1947 and 1952. He also wrote four novels. The shortest and least successful among them, Sargozasht-e kanduha (The Tale of Beehives, 1955), was an allegory of the exploitation of Iranian oil by foreign companies. In 1958 came Modir-e madraseh (The School Principal), which was enthusiastically received by the public. It decries the deplorable conditions of Iranian education through the example of an elementary school in which children coming from needy families suffer from malnutrition and funds are not sufficient for the purchase of facilities. The principal of the school, who perfectly mirrors the narrator and is identical with Al-e Ahmad himself, reappears ten years later in the novel Nefrin-e zamin (The Cursing of the Land) as a school teacher in a village which, in the wake of Iran's land reform, is losing its traditional system of agriculture in exchange for modernization and mechanical tools. The resulting confusion and failure, as depicted by Al-e Ahmad, is meant to lend credence to his basic thesis, forcefully detailed in a most influential sociopolitical essay called Gharbzadegi (Plagued by the West), according to which imitation of the West and the latter's exploitation of the East are at the root of the ruin and backwardness experienced by Eastern nations.

In 1961 Al-e Ahmad published his third novel, Nun va'l-qalam (By the Pen), an allegory expressing the interaction between government and society and the role of the intellectual elite in Iran. Told in the form of a historical tale projected back into sixteenth-century Safavid times, it offers a detached statement about religion and government in Iran and the fate of political movements. Al-e Ahmad's typical telegraphic prose, revealing both arrogance and impatience even with grammar and syntax, became the model for some aspiring talents. He impressed his audience as one who knew the diagnosis and had the remedy for the troubles of his country. Some termed him "the wide-awake conscience of the nation." Nobody, even among his opponents, would deny his power of intellect and sharp insight. It is his vital contribution to the establishment of an even less progressive and democratic regime, with all the devastating consequences of political upheaval, that is held against him. He undoubtedly was, and will be remembered as, an outstanding though controversial figure of Iran's intellectual life during the fifties and sixties.

In the hands of these and a number of other writers of fiction, Persian prose, which for over a thousand years had been treated as the illegitimate child of Persian literature, achieved great maturity and, in the appealing form of short stories, assumed a social responsibility greater than poetry had ever displayed. The rapidly politicized mind of the Persian people turned from the other-worldly and religious themes of the past millennium to secular problems. The imported genre of short stories lent itself as the most suitable vehicle for direct exhibition of social concerns as exemplified by countless daily incidents. The group of distinguished writers mentioned so far was joined in the fifties and the following two decades by a host of promising talents. The momentum gained from over thirty years of experience, fueled by fresh ideas offered in translations from numerous languages and cultures as well as ever increasing personal contact with the outside world, produced an intellectual atmosphere that was both inspiring and challenging. Censorship blocked publication of many works and inflicted considerable pain on a number of poets and novelists. But it was not able to break their pen or their will to continue blasting what was wrong and defending human rights and dignity.

Many are the writers of Persian short stories, some associated with only a few stories, others with entire volumes. However, in this introductory essay we must pass over the majority and devote a few words to only four writers who have emerged as leaders in the field.

Ebrahim Golestan (b. 1922), published his first volume of stories, Azar, mah-e akher-e pa'iz (Azar, the last month of autumn), in 1948, demonstrating his mastery of technique as well as his unusual gift and taste for linguistic refinement.

Three more collections, published in 1955, 1967 and 1969, were followed by a masterful satirical novel, Asrar-e ganj-e darreh-ye jenni (The secrets of the treasures of the enchanted valley) in 1974. Golestan's fiction offers scenes of middle-class daily life, narrative recollections, romantic episodes, and some flashbacks to familiar religious myths daringly satirized. His vocabulary is carefully selected and elegantly arranged. The flow of harmoniously measured sentences causes his prose to glide smoothly into a semi-poetic mode. His story, Safar-e 'Esmat (Esmat's journey),* is one of the jewels of modern Persian literature.

Gholam Hosayn Sa'edi (b. 1935, d. 1985 in Paris), was a courageous radical writer and, under the pen name Gowhar-e Morad, Iran's greatest playwright ever. He was a towering figure of creative writing with an inexhaustible wealth of ideas and, unlike Chubak and Golestan, not frugal with the power of his pen and mind. He wrote over thirty volumes of stories, plays, essays, and ethnographic studies. In addition to being a professional psychiatrist, he was the founder and editor of the important periodical Alefba. Like Al-e Ahmad, he was at the forefront of the protest movement. His stories are the voice of political dissent, mostly veiled in allegories with grotesque figures of village dwellers or masked foreign intruders. He often treats simple peasants and their fortunes with sympathy and feeling for their own sake and not for the symbolic role they are often assigned to play.

Another superbly gifted writer of fiction, Hushang Golshiri (b. 1938), established his fame as a leading stylist almost overnight with the publication of the short novel Shazdeh Ehtejab (Prince Ehtejab) in 1968. It focuses on the decadent figure of a Qajar prince who is vegetating with his memories of the past and his terminal tuberculosis. Following his brilliant debut, Golshiri has published numerous other volumes and remains a central figure among novelists still living in post-Pahlavi Iran. He is known for his sophisticated technique as well as for his meticulously chosen phraseology, which is characterized by many abrupt switches from one person or time or situation to another. (This calculated process is abetted by the lack of gender in Persian nouns and pronouns; thus his stories mostly remain beyond the comprehension of untrained readers.)

Mahmud Dowlatabadi (b. 1940), the youngest among the top novelists of Iran, is the author of a monumental ten-volume saga, called Klidar, which in size--and very likely also in significance--has surpassed all novels ever written in Persian. It is remarkable for its fascinating plot, the poetic quality of its prose, tremendous wealth of imagination, an appealing blend of political heroism and penetrating psychological insight, the perfect dramatic development of the story through to its tragic climax, and the variety of its characters and rural scenery. Like so many of the best Iranian writers (Alavi, Al-e Ahmad, Sa'edi, Beh'azin, Baraheni . . .), Dowlatabadi was--naively perhaps, and out of the sheer goodness of his heart--committed to an ideology that has never provided the country with anything other than unrest and social turmoil. In Jay-e khali-ye Saluch (The missing place of the Saluch), another large novel, Dowlatabadi demonstrates the plight of a village that is hard hit by the consequences of poorly planned agricultural reform and is plunged into greater misery than before. The story Edbar (Hard luck)* is only a sample of his great literary achievement so far.

The present essay would grow far beyond its limited scope if it yielded to the temptation of saying a few words about the many other writers of rank. One characteristic of Iran's intellectual development during the period covered by this volume is the sudden eruption of creativity in literature and the arts, like the waking of an old genius from over two hundred years of deep slumber. In modern sciences and technology even decades of hard effort and new learning will not enable Iranians to claim to have bridged the gap between themselves and the progressive nations of the world. In the arts and belles-lettres, however, a creative potential has been the hallmark of the Iranian people throughout the ages, dormant at times of severe adversity and cultural decline, but rising with renewed vigor in moments of improved hope and prosperity. In this century Iran has experienced one of those outbreaks of energy in numerous fields of literary and artistic creativity, including even the indigenously "unsavory" fields of music, painting, and theater.

In the field of imaginative literature Persian women, having achieved a certain degree of emancipation, hold an important position and the number of emerging talents among them is growing rapidly.

Simin Daneshvar (b. 1921), is the first outstanding female novelist of Iran; her earliest volume of short stories, Atash-e khamush (The quenched fire), appeared in 1948. Her preoccupation with the plight of Persian women was more outspokenly expressed in her second collection, Shahri chun behesht (A city like paradise, 1961), and in the rest of her writings through the years. Her real fame rests upon Savushun, 1969, an extremely popular political novel that depicts the tense living conditions of a family in Shiraz during World War II when foreign troops were present in Iran.

Mahshid Amir-Shahi (b. 1940), the author so far of four volumes of delightful stories and a novel, Dar hazar (At home, 1986), does not dwell only on the dark side of life, as had been the overriding concern of many other writers. Her characters are mostly normal middle-class individuals caught in the hustle and bustle of their daily lives with all their sunny or gloomy moments. Beautiful and often humorous memories of a happy childhood, touching expressions of affection, particularly for a gentle mother, reminiscences of school years, and teenage pleasures, as well as later disappointments in life, are just some of the enjoyable qualities of Amir-Shahi's fiction.

A quite different tone, that of a psychological approach to society and social life, rings through the fiction of Shahrnush Parsipur (b. 1946), the author of a well-known novel Tuba va ma'na-ye shab (Tuba and the meaning of night, 1987) which, in spite of--or perhaps because of--its complicated and perplexing plot, has captured the imagination of several critics and inspired different interpretations. In it Parsipur has presented a combination of political, religious, and social factors in the personal fate of a girl who passes through changing times and the ordeals of both old-fashioned and modernized family life.

In an earlier, equally fascinating novel, Sag va zemestan-e boland (The dog and the long winter, 1976), she had already treated (though without much symbolic allegory) the similar subject of the oppressive political atmosphere of the time and the agony inflicted by middle-class traditions and religious norms; the former she condemns, the latter she considers moribund. Parsipur's emancipated, somewhat resigned, mental attitude and approach to love and life is demonstrated in her story Tajrebeh-ha-ye azad (Trial offers),* written in 1970.

Generally speaking, it must be admitted that Amir-Shahi, Parsipur, and Golestan are not exceptional in their preference for scenes from middle-class problems and occupations. Numerous other novelists likewise write about the habits, vanities, and moral or immoral behavior of Iranian bourgeois and nouveau riche circles, deriding their emptiness and devotion to fun and base pleasures. One such story is Malahat-ha-ye panhan va ashkar-e khordeh-borzhua'ha (The discreet & obvious charms of the petite bourgeoisie)* by Fereydun Tonokaboni (b. 1937), mockingly portraying the hothouse atmosphere of a party where funny men and women enjoy their drinks and vulgar jokes, and yet profess nostalgia for the good old days.

Moniru Ravanipur (b. 1954) is a fast-rising, prolific star who began her career after the Revolution. Her subjects are mostly inspired by living conditions and experiences in the coastal regions of the Persian Gulf. Amin Faqiri (b. 1943) has been a school teacher in rural areas of the south and writes with sensitivity about the natural beauty and also the practical difficulties of village life. Baradaran-e ghamgin (The sad brothers, 1984),* however, seem to offer a political allegory. It shows greater technical maturity with a well-presented symbolic substance. Ahmad Mahmud (b. 1931) is intimately familiar with the poor neighborhoods around the oil cities of Khuzistan. In Pesarak-e bumi (The little native boy)* he is more concerned about the rising tide of anti-Western sentiment which, during a political demonstration in Abadan, costs the lives of a small English girl and a little native boy who has developed an innocent affection for her. Mahmud's amiable disposition contrasts with the chauvinistic views of, for example, Mir-Sadeqi as expressed in his Az posht-e pardeh-ye meh (Through the veil of fog),* or of Al-e Ahmad's unwholesome purpose in Showhar-e Amrika'i (The American husband).* Al-e Ahmad's case is no match for Chubak's more realistic one, the European wife of an Iranian husband in Tehran in Asb-e chubi (The wooden horse).* Perhaps nobody among the Persian writers, not even Hedayat, brings Kafka more to mind than Nazari (b. 1933) in his sketchy, hazy, dreamy pieces. He has never published a volume, and the five "stories" included here, plus a few more, appeared in the literary magazine Sokhan in the mid-seventies.

It is true, as many would say, that Iranian novels and short stories are usually depressing and leave the reader with the impression that Iranians are a nation of mourners with no glimmer of joy and hope and no trace of humor visible in their lives. Without venturing to explain the historical reasons for this sad reality, one might qualify this assumption as only partially true. Iranian writers, especially after 1953, may be divided into two distinctive groups, with only a few being in the middle or completely beyond the borderlines: the committed, anti-establishment writers, led by Al-e Ahmad, who fought the regime; and those for whom the overthrow of the monarchy did not constitute the exclusive purpose and motivation for writing. Several novelists belonging to the first camp made politics and political issues the substance of their stories. With them the meaning of their craft became identical with their political stance, a trend that can hardly be rated positively. Among the second group we find some of the best novelists and poets, who are more flexible in the choice of their subjects. Even within the limits of this anthology there is no shortage of stories that dilute this purported seriousness with a dose of healthy humor (by Jamalzadeh, Amir-Shahi, Tonokaboni, Daneshvar, and even Golestan). Some others may not be uplifting but neither are they depressing; they are rather descriptive or political or even suspenseful in type (e.g. Taraqqi, Sadeqi, Parsipur, Alavi, Ashurzadeh, Khaksar).

As a whole, it seems that Iranian writers, and poets as well, have grasped the opportunity to tear the veil aside and publicly expose the reality of life in their country after centuries of oppression, plunder and torture, neglect and abuse of all human rights by authorities of whatever stamp, whether in the name of God or of the State, but in reality to quench their own bestial thirst for money and power. These courageous poets and writers have tried, with more sincerity and honesty than any other leaders and institutions in the past, to open the minds of a nation. To a certain extent, they have succeeded. This intellectual movement started rolling with the Constitutional Revolution. Since then it has been supported and fed by a variety of fundamental changes, and no power has been able to slow its momentum.

During the last twelve years a number of poets and writers, together with artists and scholars, have chosen to live in exile. Several of the most brilliant among them have died either at home or abroad. Many others are enduring the pains consequent upon resistance at home. And a generation of promising new talents is now also rising. They could not, except for three or four, be included in our anthology; they need, and deserve, a separate volume to themselves.