The Mourners of Bayal: Short Stories by Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi

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The Mourners of Bayal is a collection of eight interrelated stories centered around the people of Bayal, an imaginary Iranian village in the middle of nowhere. This work is a penetrating allegory of the manners, beliefs, hopes, and desperations of rural Iranians in the early seventies. The Mourners of Bayal is a very early example of magical realism. It precedes the works of masters of the genre, José Saramago, and Gabriel García Márquez. The most famous of the eight stories is the fourth (they are numbered without a title) which was adapted into a popular movie, The Cow. While away, Mashdi Hassan's cow, the center of his universe, dies. His wife is desperate and no one dares to tell him the truth. He gradually finds out, descends into madness and takes the identity of the cow. The townspeople attempt to cure him to no avail. He dies while being taken to the regional hospital.