The Blind Owl

Authorized by the Sadegh Hedayat Foundation - First Translation into English Based on the Bombay Edition

By: Sadegh Hedayat, Naveed Noori - translator

Narrated by: Sean Antony Farmiloe

Length: 4 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Widely regarded as Sadegh Hedayat's masterpiece, The Blind Owl is the most important work of literature to come out of Iran in the past century. On the surface, this work seems to be a tale of doomed love, but with each minute basic facts become obscure and the listener soon realizes this book is much more than a love story. Although The Blind Owl has been compared to the works of Kafka, Rilke and Poe, this work defies categorization. Lescot's French translation made The Blind Owl world-famous, while D.P. Costello's English translation made it largely accessible. Sadly, this work has yet to find its way into the English pantheon of classics.

This 75th anniversary edition, translated by award-winning writer Naveed Noori and published in conjunction with the Hedayat Foundation, aims to change this and is notable for a number of firsts:

• The only translation endorsed by the Sadegh Hedayat Foundation
• The first translation to use the definitive Bombay edition (Hedayat's handwritten text)
• The only available English translation by a native Persian and English speaker
• The preface includes a detailed textual analysis of The Blind Owl

Finally, by largely preserving the spirit as well as the structure of Hedayat's writing, this edition brings the English listener into the world of Hedayat's The Blind Owl as never before. Extensive footnotes (explaining Persian words, phrases, and customs ignored in previous translations) provide deeper understanding of this work for both the causal listener and the serious student of literature.

©2012 Sadegh Hedayat (P)2022 l'Aleph

Critic reviews

“There are indeed marked differences between Costello’s and Noori’s translations. As Noori indicates, his attempt to preserve the overabundance of dashes gives the reader a more immediate sense of the narrator’s agitation...The first sentence flows on in Noori’s translation, piling sensation upon sensation never allowing us to pause and catch our breath or separate out the images from the sensations. In his discussion of the relationship between his translation and Costello’s, Noori also draws on translation theory and sees Costello’s focus on the fluidity of the text in English as a “domestication” of Hedayat’s original. Noori’s new English translation and his preface are a welcome addition and will no doubt draw the attention of scholars interested in Hedayat’s works. The close textual and comparative analysis of the type Noori offers marks a new and long-overdue critical approach to the translation of the most celebrated work of modern Persian prose.” (Nasrin Rahimieh, Professor of Middle Eastern Literatures)

A dark and complex journal entry

This story requires attention to detail as it is essentially a repetitive series of journal entries/ a confession of despair. If it is approached within that context, it will be thoroughly enjoyed, but if not, it will seem confusing, repetitive and having no plot.

The performance was spectacular. The narrator’s voice entailed the emotion that was present and emphasis on certain words painted a vivid picture of the world of which the protagonist lived.

Compelling Literary Horror

A fever-dream of a book that attacks tradition in its reaction to fundamentalism. It may be the most daring horror story written up to that time.

Whaaat?

Nonsensical. Repetitive. Disturbing imagery. No plot, only an opium-smoking deranged person’s ramblings. Reminiscent of Poe, but lacks an actual story.
Good thing this was short, I was irritated throughout, and even more so when the end was a huge let down.

Highly overrated and pseudo-profound…

Ramblings of a fever dream, repetitive and unremarkable. Perhaps it carries more weight in the original language - but ultimately, forgettable and uninteresting.