The Blind Owl  

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The Blind Owl (1937) (in Persian: بوف کور Boof-e koor) is Sadegh Hedayat's most enduring work of prose and one of literature's greatest masterpieces. It is a major literary work of 20th century Iran. Written in Persian, it tells the story of an unnamed pen case painter, the narrator, who sees in his macabre, feverish nightmares that "the presence of death annihilates all that is imaginary. We are the offspring of death and death delivers us from the tantalizing, fraudulent attractions of life; it is death that beckons us from the depths of life. If at times we come to a halt, we do so to hear the call of death... Throughout our lives, the finger of death points at us." The narrator addresses his murderous confessions to the shadow on his wall resembling an owl. His confessions do not follow a linear progression of events and often repeat and layer themselves thematically, thus lending to the open-ended nature of interpretation of the story.

The Blind Owl was written during the oppressive latter years of the Great King-Reza Shah of Iran's rule (1925—1941). It was originally published in a limited edition in Bombay, during Hedayat's year-long stay there in 1937, stamped with "Not for sale or publication in Iran." It first appeared in Tehran in 1941 (as a serial in the daily Iran), after Reza Shah's abdication, and had an immediate and forceful effect. However it is believed that much of the novel had already been completed by 1930 while Hedayat was still a student in Paris.

Translations

The Blind Owl was translated into French by Roger Lescot during World War II, apparently with Hedayat's knowledge and approval, and published as La Chouette Aveugle (1953), and later by Pasteur Vallery Radot, a member of the French Academy. The book was well received in the French literary circles. It has been known to make its readers suicidal, hence the banning in Iran.

In Germany, two translations appeared in the early 1960s. The first, entitled Die Blinde Eule, was translated by Heshmat Moayyed, Otto H. Hegel and Ulrich Riemerschmidt directly from the Persian; the second, in East Germany, was translated by Gerd Henniger from the French version.

In Turkey, The Blind Owl was translated from Persian to Turkish in 1977 by the very famous Turkish poet Behçet Necatigil, under the title "Kör Baykuş".

The Blind Owl was translated into English by D.P. Costello (1957), by Henry D. G. Law, and by Iraj Bashiri (1974).

In Poland The Blind Owl was translated from the Persian original by late specjalist in Iranian studies, Barbara Majewska, Ph.D. It appeared under the same-meaning title "Ślepa sowa" twice. First in the respectable literary quarterly „Literatura na Świecie” (No 10(90), Warszawa, October 1978, pp. 4-116); then as a separate book (Warszawa, 1979).

In Romania, The Blind Owl was translated from Persian into Romanian in 1996 by the orientalist philologist Gheorghe Iorga, under the title Bufniţa oarbă. A revised second edition came out in 2006.

In Mexico, The Blind Owl was translated from the Roger Lescot's French version into Spanish by Agustí Bartra, under the title La lechuza ciega. It was published by Joaquín Mortiz Books in 1966.

In Urdu the novel has been translated by Ajmal Kamal with the original name Boof-e-Kor. Many of Hedayat's short stories have also been translated into Urdu, mostly by Bazl-e-Haq Mahmood, who published one volume of his short stories as Sag-e-Awara (Sag-e Velgard).

In India, two translations appeared in the Malayalam language. The first, entitled Kurudan Moonga, was translated by the famous novelist late Vilasini. The second, entitled Kurudan Kooman was translated by S. A. [Qudsi] and published by Mathrubhumi Books in 2005; second edition has been published by DC Books in 2011.

In Finland, The Blind Owl was translated from Persian into Finnish in 1990 by Henri Broms, Petri Pohjanlehto and Leena Talvio, under the title Sokea pöllö.

In Armenian, translated by Eduard Hakhverdyan.

In Japan, The Blind Owl was translated by Kiminori Nakamura and published by Hakusuisha in 1983.

Quotations

(from the Iraj Bashiri translation [1])

• In life there are certain sores which slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker. (opening line)

• I passed through many streets and distraughtly walked by the rabble who, with greedy faces, were in pursuit of money and lust. In fact, I did not need to see them to know them; one was enough to represent the rest. They were all like one big mouth leading to a wad of guts, terminating in a sexual organ.

• I write only for my shadow which is cast on the wall in front of the light. I must introduce myself to it.

• In this mean world of wretchedness and misery, for the first time I thought a ray of sunshine had shone on my life. But alas, it was not a sunbeam, rather it was only a passing gleam, a shooting star, which appeared to me in the likeness of a woman or an angel. And in the light of that moment, lasting only about a second, I witnessed all my life's misfortunes, and I discovered their magnitude and grandeur. Then this beam of light disappeared again into the dark abyss into which it was bound inevitably to disappear.

• I was not in full control of myself, and it seemed that I knew her name from before. The evil in her eyes, her color, her scent and her movements were all familiar to me. It was as though my souls, in the life before this, in the world of imagination, had bordered on her soul and that both souls, of the same essence and substance, were destined for union. I must have lived this life very close to her. I had no desire to touch her; the invisible beams that emanated from our bodies and mingled were sufficient for me. Isn't this terrifying experience which seemed so familiar to met quite the same as the feelings of two lovers who feel that they have known each other before and that a mysterious relationship has previously existed between them? Was it possible that someone else could affect me? The dry, repulsive and ominous laughter of the old man, however, tore our bonds asunder.

• I was growing inward incessantly; like an animal that hibernates during the wintertime, I could hear other peoples' voices with my ears; my own voice, however, I could hear only in my throat. The loneliness and the solitude that lurked behind me were like a condensed, thick, eternal night, like one of those nights with a dense, persistent, sticky darkness which waits to pounce on unpopulated cities filled with lustful and vengeful dreams.

• What relationship could exist between the lives of the fools and healthy rabble who were well, who slept well, who performed the sexual act well, who had never felt the wings of death on their face every moment—what relationship could exist between them and one like me who has arrived at the end of his rope and who knows that he will pass away gradually and tragically?

• What is love? For the rabble love is a kind of variety, a transient vulgarity; the rabble's conception of love is best found in their obscene ditties, in prostitution and in the foul idioms they use when they are halfway sober, such as "shoving the donkey's foreleg in mud," or "putting dust on the head." My love for her, however, was of a totally different kind. I knew her from ancient times—strange slanted eyes, a narrow, half-open mouth, a subdued quiet voice. She was the embodiment of all my distant, painful memories among which I sought what I was deprived of, what belonged to me but somehow I was denied. Was I deprived forever?

• My life appeared to me as unnatural, uncertain and incredible as the design on the pencase I am using at this moment. It seems that a painter who has been possessed, perhaps a perfectionist, has painted the cover of this pencase. Often, when I look at this design, it seems familiar; perhaps it is because of this design that I write or perhaps this design makes me write.

• Finally I realized that I was a demi-god and that I was beyond all the low, petty desires of mankind. I felt the eternal flux within me. What is eternity? Eternity for me was playing hide-and-seek with that whore on the banks of the Suren river; it was a momentary closing of my eyes when I hid my head in her lap.