Description

Bozorg Alavi (Persian: بزرگ علوی‎) (February 2, 1904 – February 18, 1997) was an influential Iranian writer, novelist, and political intellectual. He was a founding member of the communist Tudeh Party of Iran in the 1940s and – following the 1953 coup against Premier Mohammad Mossadegh – spent the rest of his life in exile in Germany, first during the Pahlavi regime, then returning to Germany once more following the 1979 revolution. Cheshm’hā’yash (Her Eyes), which was published in Iran in 1952 and was subsequently banned, is considered his finest novel. Alavi was also a very close friend of Iran’s famous writer Sadegh Hedayat; these two created a literary group when they were residing in Paris called “sab’e group”. Although Her Eyes is considered his masterpiece, Alavi also wrote many other books, such as the novel chemdan which was written under the influence of Freudian psychology. His other novels mirza, 53 nafar and gilemard are used in Iranian high-school textbooks. He did return to Tehran after the revolution but did not stay too long and decided to head back to Germany. Bozorg Alavi’s contribution to Iranian Literature was profound and shall not be forgotten.

Her Eyes was originally published in 1952 and is recognized by many scholars as Bozorg Alavi’s finest novel. Alavi, a leading contemporary Persian writer and a champion of the Left, is well known for his political activism, which led to his imprisonment in Iran under the regime of Reza Shah. Her Eyes is the story of Farangis, a member of the Iranian upper class whose life of leisure has left her without employable skills. Despairing, she enrolls in a Parisian art school, only to discover that she is severely lacking as a painter. She returns to Iran to participate in the political activities of Ostad Makan, Iran’s greatest painter. This most popular of Alavi’s novels, translated into English for the first time, presents a realistic picture of 20th-century Iran in the throes of rapid, forced modernization. Co-published with the Persian Heritage Foundation.