Description
Book SynopsisA new English translation of one of the most important, controversial Iranian novels of the twentieth century
Winner of the 2023 Lois Roth Persian Translation Award
A Penguin ClassicWritten by one of the greatest Iranian writers of the twentieth century, Blind Owl tells a two-part story of an isolated narrator with a fragile relationship with time and reality. In first person, the narrator offers a string of hazy, dreamlike recollections fueled by opium and alcohol. He spends time painting the exact same scene on the covers of pen cases: an old man wearing a cape and turban sitting under a cypress tree, separated by a small stream from a beautiful woman in black who offers him a water lily. In a one-page transition, the reader finds the narrator covered in blood and waiting for the police to arrest him. In part two, readers glimpse the grim realities that unlock the mysteries of the first part. In a new translation that reflects Hedayat’s conver
Trade Review“a much-needed and clear translation”
—Amir-Hussein Radjy, The New York Times
“The eerie, phantasmal
Blind Owl…possesses the fully dimensional oddness of a vivid dream, which one can mine for interpretations, analyze for influences or simply submit to.”
—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
