Black Parrot, Green Crow: A Collection of Short Fiction

UNTIL NOW, only a sparse selection of Golshiri's fiction has been available in English translation--three short stories, a novella written under a pseudonym, and his novel Prince Ehtejab, which was made into a film. Now, Black Parrot, Green Crow brings together the largest collection of Golshiri's writings in any language--eighteen short stories and three poems. They span the arc of Golshiri's career as a writer, from his days as a young student in Isfahan under the Pahlavi regime, to the 1980s and 1990s, and the disappointment of the Iranian people with the Islamic Republic. Golshiri's stories, crafted with a withering irony, expose the fanatical and draconian political apparatus of tyrannical regimes, while his wry humor and delicate sensitivity to the human condition tempers the blistering satire, making the narratives short but nonetheless harrowing and touching tragedies. The tales are filled with the uncertainty of life in a culture undergoing drastic change, and hauntingly etch the plight of the individual in a climate of political oppression.

Fiction writer, critic, and editor, HOUSHANG GOLSHIRI was born in Isfahan in 1937. He was one of the first Iranian writers to use modern literary techniques, and is recognized as one of the most influential writers of Persian prose of the twentieth century. In 1965 Golshiri helped to found Iran's chief literary journal, and in 1968 he established, along with other writers protesting government censorship, the Iranian Writers Association. Golshiri's stories and efforts to establish basic rights for writers landed him in trouble--including imprisonment and a ban on his books--with both the Pahlavi regime and the Islamic Republic. In 1999 he was awarded the Erich-Maria Remarque Peace Prize for his struggle to promote democracy and human rights in Iran. Golshiri died, allegedly of meningitis, on June 5, 2000, in Tehran.

HESHMAT MOAYYAD has been Professor of Persian Literature at the University of Chicago since 1966.