Malakut and Other Stories by Bahram Sadeqi

DESCRIPTION

A man who doesn’t recognize his own face, an aristocrat who keeps his amputated limbs in jars on the shelf, an infant that commits suicide, a cat that is secretly writing a novel, a rooster that rebels against fate—those are some of the characters that make Bahram Sadeqi’s stories intriguing, incomparable and inimitable.

Sadeqi is an original story-teller who depicts familiar facts and mundane realities in such a way that shocks us to the core and makes us call everything into question. With a subtle irony reminiscent of Poe, Kafka and Marquez, he engages us in an intricate quest to explore the meaning of life, death and the cosmos.

Considering the slight body of work Sadeqi left behind after his untimely death, one cannot help but be struck by the impact his work has had on Persian literature nevertheless. Sadeqi consistently transgressed established literary ideologies with an easy confidence, pioneering an entirely new style of literature and presenting his own unique perspective on the human condition.

His presence in contemporary Persian prose fiction was like that of a lone meteorite: appearing in a blinding flash, instantly yet fleetingly illuminating its surroundings, then abruptly fading into the darkness, leaving only a completely original, overwhelming and fantastic trail, the remainder of something singularly magnificent that we cannot hope to ever see repeated. Ever since he first published his stories in literary journals as a young writer, Sadeqi’s works have been widely reprinted, finding vast audiences among each new generation of Iranians.

Malakut and Other Stories by Bahram Sadeqi contains some of Sadeqi’s best short stories, as well as Malakut, his magnum opus, a novella that took everyone by surprise in the 1960s, still fascinating readers and critics alike.

AUTHOR

Bahram Sadeqi (1937-1985) is an original story-teller who depicts familiar facts and mundane realities in such a way that shocks us to the core and makes us call everything into question. With a subtle irony reminiscent of Poe, Kafka and Marquez, he engages us in an intricate quest to explore the meaning of life, death and the cosmos.
Considering the slight body of work Sadeqi left behind after his untimely death, one cannot help but be struck by the impact his work has had on Persian literature nevertheless. Sadeqi consistently transgressed established literary ideologies with an easy confidence, pioneering an entirely new style of literature and presenting his own unique perspective on the human condition.
His presence in contemporary Persian prose fiction was like that of a lone meteorite: appearing in a blinding flash, instantly yet fleetingly illuminating its surroundings, then abruptly fading into the darkness, leaving only a completely original, overwhelming and fantastic trail, the remainder of something singularly magnificent that we cannot hope to ever see repeated. Ever since he first published his stories in literary journals as a young writer, Sadeqi’s works have been widely reprinted, finding vast audiences among each new generation of Iranians.

TRANSLATOR

Kaveh Basmenji was born in 1961 Iran, where he worked as a journalist, writer and translator for more than twenty years before continuing his career abroad. He has translated several works of Western literature into Persian, including works by Edgar Allan Poe, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Milan Kundera. Basmenji is the author of Tehran Blues:Youth Culture in Iran . He has compiled and translated into English a collection of short stories by contemporary Iranian female writers. He has published a volume of his own poetry and a collection of essays in Persian. Basmenji has worked for Reuters and the BBC, among others. He lives in Washington, DC.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

General Editor’s Foreword by Ehsan Yarshater
Translator’s Introduction by Kaveh Basmenji
Tomorrow is On the Way (Farda dar rah ast)
The Obsession (Vasvas)
Enigma (Kalaf-e sar-dar-gom)
Most Regrettably (Ba kamal-e ta’assof)
Action-Packed (Sarasar hadesa)
Imminent (Qarib al-voqu)
Teaching in a Lovely Spring (Tadris dar bahar-e del-angiz)
The Chain (Zanjir)
A Tale For Children (Dastan baraye kudakan)
The Trench And the Empty Canteens (Sangar va qomqomaha-ye khali)
Good Health (Afiyat)
Malakut
Bahram Sadeqi by Saeed Honarmand
Malakut by Saeed Honarmand