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|---|---|---|---|
| Born | 3 August 1941 kermanshah | ||
| Pen name | Latif Talkhestani | ||
| Occupation | Writer | ||
| Nationality | Kurd | ||
| Period | 1971–2013 | ||
| Genres | Novel, short story, biography, etc | ||
| Literary movement | Modernism, Realism, Socialism | ||
| Notable work(s) |
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| Notable award(s) |
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Ali Ashraf Darvishian (25 August 1941 – 26 October 2017) was an Iranian story writer and scholar of Kurdish descent. After finishing teacher-training college, he would teach at the poverty-stricken villages of Gilan-e-Gharb and Shah Abad (nowadays called Islam Abad). This atmosphere is featured in most of his stories. His own life situation, as well as the experiences that he had from his teaching in those poor areas, was the inspiration for his literary works and also made him a critic of the political and social situation of Iran. Later, he moved to Tehran and continued his studies in Persian literature.
In 2006, Ali Ashraf Darvishian was in Australia as a guest of the Iranian Centre for Democracy and presented a number of lectures on a broad range of social and cultural issues.
Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian-French author, mentions Darvishian in her graphic novel Persepolis. She considers him her favorite childhood author, recalls going to his clandestine book signing, and describes him as "a kind of local Charles Dickens".[1]
He died at Karaj, on 26 October 2017[2] and was buried at Behesht-e Sakineh cemetery.[3][4]
books:
Novels
Abshooran
Salhay-e-Abri(Cloudy Years),4 volumel
seloul 18
hamishe madar
Story collection
Chahar Ketab
Doroshti
Az Nadārad, Tā Dārā
Dastanhaye Mahbube Man
Rouznāmeye Divari Madreseye Ma
Bafrine
Hamrāhe Ahanghāye Babam
fasle nan
shab abestan ast
az nadarad ta dara
az in velayat
Children's book:
rouzname diwari-e madreseye ma
key barmigardi dadash jan
atash dar ketabxaneye bacheha
gole tala o kalashe qermez
abre siahe hezar cheshm
rangineh
Cultural Research:
Farhang-e-Afsanehay-e Irani (Iranian Legends and Fairy Tales Encyclopedia
Abshooran
Salhay-e-Abri(Cloudy Years),4 volumel
seloul 18
hamishe madar
Story collection
Chahar Ketab
Doroshti
Az Nadārad, Tā Dārā
Dastanhaye Mahbube Man
Rouznāmeye Divari Madreseye Ma
Bafrine
Hamrāhe Ahanghāye Babam
fasle nan
shab abestan ast
az nadarad ta dara
az in velayat
Children's book:
rouzname diwari-e madreseye ma
key barmigardi dadash jan
atash dar ketabxaneye bacheha
gole tala o kalashe qermez
abre siahe hezar cheshm
rangineh
Cultural Research:
Farhang-e-Afsanehay-e Irani (Iranian Legends and Fairy Tales Encyclopedia
wikipedia
--------------------------
Darvishian,the contemporary committed regionalist writer
In September 1941, in Kermanshah, Ali Ashraf Darvishian was born into a poor family. His father was a blacksmith, but he lost his job and changed occupations several times. As a child, his father and grandmother would tell him stories and from his early years he was drawn to books and stories. The family led a very spartan life and he had to work hard to earn enough to buy a few books.
He later became a schoolteacher and continued his studies until he obtained his master's degree from the Higher Normal School in Tehran, and also obtained a master's degree in psychology from the University of Tehran. In 1971, he was imprisoned for eight months because of his political activities at the university and his collection of short stories entitled From this Region (Az in velâyat). After two months, he was imprisoned again and sentenced to seven months in prison. He was kicked out of college and lost his job for good. However, he continued to write articles, novels and short stories, even in prison. He was then sentenced, for the third time, to eleven years in prison, but to 1979, he did not serve his entire sentence.
A realistic and committed writer, Ali Ashraf Darvishian has written numerous works including collections of short stories (From This Region, 1973; آbshouran, 1973; With the music of my father, 1979), novels (La Cellule 18, 1979, Les Années clouds, 1991), or even The Dictionary of the Kermânshahian dialect, The Kurdish Fables and Proverbs (in two volumes), and The Dictionary of fables (in 15 volumes), with the collaboration of Réza Khandân Mahâbâdi. He has also published many children's stories. However, Darvishian is above all a regionalist writer. He has a great interest in Iranian traditions and customs. It is this same interest that led him to write The Kurdish Fables and Proverbs, The Dictionary of the Kermanshahian Dialect and The Dictionary of Iranian Fables. His research in the field of folklore has been praised by many historians and researchers.
Almost all of his stories take place in Kermânshâh (a city located in the east of kurdistan, where the majority of the inhabitants speak Kurdish). His work concerns the Kurds, their habits, their beliefs and even their social and political problems. By reading his work, the reader learns about the beliefs and customs of the people of this region. Some of the characters in his short stories existed in real life. It also allows the reader to become familiar with the Kurdish words, expressions and verses used by the characters in his stories. Through his work, Darvishian tried to make the folk elements of the culture and history of Kermanshah better known. His success in regionalist literature is linked to the deep knowledge he had of "his" region. His most popular works, his short stories, were inspired by memories of his childhood as well as his experience as a master in the villages of Iran. In an attempt to make the reader perceive the local reality in the most concrete way, Darvishian chooses his characters among the people of the street and it is always the pronoun "I" or a fictitious narrator who tells the story. In the majority of his short stories, Darvishian tackles a recurring theme: that of poverty.
The first story of his collection From This Region, entitled Nadârade, depicts a little boy who is symbolically called Niâz Ali Nadârade (niâz means "the need" and nadârade means "he does not have"), and who is devoid of any good. Through the story of this child, Darvishian exposes the difficult living conditions in which the people of this region lived at that time. Niaz Ali is sick and is vomiting blood. His notebook is made up of papers found in the school trash cans. His only toy is a ball made of crumpled black paper to which he has attached a string. His father is very old and has no job. Mashe Bâgher, the merchant whom Niâz Ali sees in his dream becoming a monster, symbolizes exploiters and tyrants. Finally, one winter day, his master who is also the narrator, understands that Nadârade "died last night". Here, the tragedy of Nadârade reaches its climax. Simultaneously realistic, humanist, symbolic, critical and revolutionary, this story, in which sensitivity and pity rub shoulders, is in a way that of an entire people, throughout history.
The Tomb presents the story of poor peasants who, instead of earning a living by cultivating land, dig the graves of Zoroastrians and steal their jewels and precious objects. They are not aware that this poverty is imposed on them and that they will never get rid of it. In the tale Kâké Morâde, poor Kâké Morâde, who has borrowed money from the bank to buy a stove and sweets for her children, drowns in the river. When residents of nearby villages saw her body adrift, she was still clinging to her bundle and the stove. If she had left the stove, she could have escaped. But in the society that Darvishian depicts for us, the value of money is more than that of human life. Poverty therefore pushes men to lie, to steal, and to fight. However, we always tend to give reason and to sympathize with the characters of Darvishian. If the poor old man of The Earth tricks a widow he considers rich into marrying her, he is not wrong and is not guilty. He lies because he needs money to heal his sick daughter. Everything the characters do or say appears to be a natural reaction to escape poverty. To properly suggest this feeling of poverty, Darvishian sometimes makes a comparison between the different social strata of the country. Thus, in Nadârade, Niâz Ali reads in the newspaper that in Tehran, a jacket is sold for 250,000 tomans, while his mother barely earns 25 rials a day.
In the eyes of Darvishian, poverty is the source of all misfortunes and this poverty is due to the economic system and the oppression exerted by the regime of the time on certain disadvantaged sections of society. If he succeeded in painting poverty and unhappiness so accurately, it is partly because he himself had tasted the bitter taste of poverty and had lived among unhappy people. What solution to bring to this problem? Darvishian always presents the evil and not the remedy. No one thinks of these unfortunate people. No one can help them. According to him, there is no remedy for this situation. Darvishian believes that the writer, as a free-spirited man and master of his ideas, has an active role to play. In one of his interviews, he said that he believed neither in inspiration, nor in pure art, nor in the total gratuity of writing. To write, you have to be committed and have a purpose. As a conscious man, the writer has the mission to inform, to guide his public. In another interview, he also said that he was against Roland Barthes and writers who claimed to write for no one. - If there is no reader, Darvishian asks them, for whom do you write? Writing without a reader is like music composed for the deaf.
Darvishian has a great knowledge of foreign writers and more particularly of the French. He agrees with Sartre and believes that man being condemned to be free, he has no other solution but to choose his attitude in relation to the world around him. The writer is no exception to the rule. Whether he accepts or refuses, his work always takes a stand: one cannot escape, even through his silence, the challenges of his time. He sees censorship and blind imitation as the destroyers of innovation. Although the form and subject of his own works are not free from a certain monotony, he believes that the innovative writer is one who has shown eclecticism in his thought and in his writing. He avoids rhetoric and formal complexity and prefers colloquial language and sometimes even slang to literary language. He writes novels that are engaging only by their message and not by their form. This is why his work can easily communicate with his reader. But behind this simplicity and the short sentences, there is a deep meaning, a revolt, a cry.
Darvishian's goal was to make a revolution in thought and not in art. He puts his writing at the service of society and politics.
Sources:
- DARVISHIAN, Ali Ashraf, Abshourân, Tehran, Ed. Shabguir, 1975 - DARVISHIAN, Ali Ashraf, From This Region, Tehran, Ed. Shabguir, 1977
- DARVISHIAN, Ali Ashraf, The Cloudy Years, Tehran, Ed. Esparak, 1991
- DARVISHIAN, Ali Ashraf, Tchoun o Tchera (set of articles and interviews), Tehran, Ed. Eshâreh, 2002
- KAZEROUNI, Djafar, Critique of the works of Ali Ashrâf Darvishian, Tehran, Ed. Nédayé Farhang, 1998.
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