South Korean scholar keen to translate “The Blind Owl”

TEHRAN,May 28(MNA) – A South Korean translator has recently asked the Institute for the Preservation of Sadeq Hedayat’s Works to acquire the right to translate Hedayat’s “The Blind Owl” into the Korean language. The Institute for the Preservation of Sadeq Hedayat’s Works, which is run by his nephew Jahangir Hedayat, owns the copyright of the works of Hedayat, Iran's foremost modern writer of prose fiction and short stories. “A scholar recently called me from Korea and asked permission to translate the book to be published in the country,” Jahangir Hedayat told the Persian service of ILNA on Monday. He gave no name for the Korean translator and added, “The Korean scholar has promised to give me a copy of the translated version of the book since it is protected by copyright.” “The Blind Owl”, about a painter who sees the presence of death in his murderous, feverish nightmares, is the most famous modern Persian novel both in Iran and Europe as well as in America. It has been translated into 26 languages including English, German, Italian, French, and Georgian. Hedayat (1903-1951) was influenced by world literature, especially European literature, and read the works of Kafka, Poe, and Dostoyevsky. He committed suicide in Paris. “The Blind Owl” is regarded as one of the ten most important works in world surrealist literature. In addition, Hedayat’s short stories are regarded as some of the best Persian stories of the twentieth century.