Modern Persian Sho r t Sto r ies offers 15 wo r ks by contempo r ary writers. Some of the sto r ies are only vignettes, almost local colo r sketches. Others are complex, full of characters a nd tense episodes, fully plotted to their harsh denouements.
The Western reader might be taken aback by the harshness of these sto r ies, by their lack of sentimentality. Here there is none of the ", Modern Persian Sho r t Sto r ies offers 15 wo r ks by contempo r ary writers. Some of the sto r ies are only vignettes, almost local colo r sketches. Others are complex, full of characters a nd tense episodes, fully plotted to their harsh denouements.
The Western reader might be taken aback by the harshness of these sto r ies, by their lack of sentimentality. Here there is none of the ",sto r ybook", quality of a Scheherezade o r the magic of old Arabian sto r ies. In the severe gaze of our autho r s, contempo r ary Iranian life, country o r city, has an immediacy, an arrow sharp honesty, that is almost painful. Tension a nd frustration seem the twins on the center of the eyeball of attention. In many ways the later sto r ies may even be seen as coded messages, warning of strains too hard to endure, of lives lived so joylessly that cruelty was the only reaction to someone else's imagined happiness.
These are wo r ks speaking fr om a wo r ld not wishing to be bo r n but to be abo r ted. Yet, these are vivid, dema nding our interest, a nd even our sympathy.