Shaayad shireen tareen shaftaalv-i-darakht

baashi

Imma barkhi az mardum shaftaalu dost nidarand

[It is possible that you are the sweetest peach of the tree

But then some people do not like peaches]

I first came across the short-lived Iranian writer Samad Behrangi (1939–1968) in Sibte Hasan’s classic work on the Iranian Revolution, Inquilab-i-Iran (1980). While describing the suffocating atmosphere under Reza Shah Pahlavi, Hasan noted how scores of Iranian writers and poets paid the ultimate price for dissenting against the Shah — by suicide, execution or outright murder. Behrangi was among these immensely gifted figures. He died on August 31, 1968, before he had reached the age of 30.

Behrangi was a teacher, social critic, folklorist, translator and short-story writer. He was born in the neighbourhood of Charandab in Tabriz, Azerbaijan province, on June 24, 1939, into a Turkish working-class family. Educated in Tabriz, he graduated from high school in 1957 and, in the same year, began teaching in the village schools of East Azerbaijan Province, approximately 50 miles south-west of Tabriz, a role he continued for 11 years.

Behrangi began writing short stories and translating from Turkish into Persian in the late 1950s. Influenced by Azerbaijani folk tales, he also translated many of them.

He........

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