Mahmud Dowlatabadi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Mahmoud Dowlatabadi . (Discuss)

This article does not cite any references or sources. (June 2008)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

Mahmud Dowlatabadi was born in Dowlatabad, a village in Khorasan, Iran, in 1941 into a modest family.

An avid reader, Dowlatabadi devoured almost every book on Persian folklore in the prime of his youth including Forty Parrots, Hussein the Kurd from Shabestar, The Book of Gharshasb and Amir Arsalan. His burning passion for these books and his rustic life fostered and nourished the imagination of a young mind who would one day become a great writer.

He spent the precious days of his youth in tending the flocks and helping his father with the farming. He attended high school in Tehran but failed to obtain a degree. His fate took a new turn when he joined the Anahita Drama Group. In 1975, he was arrested and spent a year in prison.

Dowlatabadi largely drew on his personal experiences in his fictional works and could enrich realistic literature in Iran. In 1962, he published his first story entitled The Pit of Night in the Anahita Literary Magazine. Afterwards, he wrote and published other stories and novels. These stories catapulted him into the limelight as the greatest realist writer of rural stories.

In 1968, he wrote his novel The Tale of Baba Sobhan which was made into a motion picture by Masud Kimiai. In 1977, he wrote the first volume of his magnum opus Kalidar which was completed in 1984.

In his works, Dowlatabadi depicts the plight of the benighted people who have lost their social and spiritual security. Immigration is the main theme in the works of Dowlatabadi.

In his works Dowlatabadi largely draws on his personal experiences and produces works to address the whole human community. Using a mellifluous language, he creates a prose which is both delightful and down-to-earth. The rich tapestry of his style comes largely from the capacious memory he has at his disposal.