The earliest Persian novels from the period 1910–1925 are examined using literary analyses and historical contextualization. This approach presents the novels – historical and social realist novels and a Utopia – in a completely new light and invites the reader to a new interpretation of the earliest period of modern Persian literature. Claus V. Pedersen is associate professor of Persian studies, University of Copenhagen, and specializes in modern Persian literature.
The Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 and its transformation into an Islamic revolution has been an object of study the last couple of decades. The book does not attempt to explain the revolution and the theocrasy it resulted in, but takes interest in the modes of thought (world views) that preceded the revolution in order to understand the cultural context in which the revolution happened. However, only a limited part of the Iranian culture is studied, namely the literary part, more precisely, five of the leading shortstory writers, Seyyed Mohammad Al Jamalzadeh, Sadeq Hedayat Sadeq Chubak, Jamal A-le Ahmad, and Hušang Golšhiri. The analyses of the short stories show that the underlying world views are strictly secular. As a contextualisation of the literary works, four Iranian thinkers and ideologists, Jamal al-Din Afghani (1838-1897), Ahmad Kasravi (1890-1946), Seyyed Hoseyn Nasr (b. 1933), and Ali Šhariati (1933-1977) are presented. With Seyyed Hoseyn Nasr as an exception, the study of the world views of these four shows a development towards secular modes of thought.
