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Books

Grove Press
Grove Press
Grove Press

The Blind Owl

by Sadegh Hedayat Translated from Farsi by D.P. Costello Introduction by Porochista Khakpour

Available with a new introduction, The Blind Owl is a masterpiece of Persian literature—a tale of obsession and madness that chillingly re-creates the labyrinthine movements of a deranged mind.

  • Imprint Grove Paperback
  • Page Count 160
  • Publication Date October 12, 2010
  • ISBN-13 978-0-8021-4428-7
  • Dimensions 5.5" x 8.25"
  • US List Price $18.00

About The Book

Sadegh Hedayat was Iran’s most renowned modern fiction writer, and his spine-tingling novel The Blind Owl is considered his seminal work. A classic of modern Iranian literature, this edition is presented to contemporary audiences with a new introduction by Porochista Khakpour, one of the most exciting voices from a new generation of Iranian-American authors.

A haunting tale of loss and spiritual degradation, The Blind Owl tells the story of a young opium addict’s despair after losing a mysterious lover. Through a series of intricately woven events that revolve around the same set of mental images—an old man with a spine-chilling laugh, four cadaverous black horses with rasping coughs, a hidden urn of poisoned wine—the narrator is compelled to record his obsession with a beautiful woman even as it drives him further into frenzy and madness.

Tags Literary

Praise

“An extraordinary work.” —The Times Literary Supplement (London)

“[Hedayat] conveys more vividly than Kafka or Poe the state of madness. . . . [The Blind Owl is] a terrifying whorl of incidents that turns and twists upon itself to recreate the labyrinthine movements of an insane mind.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“If you ever happen to go mad it will no doubt unfold precisely the way it is described here in The Blind Owl. It will be haunting, harrowing, and not without humor. Sadegh Hedayat, through the eyes of his young Iranian opium addict, has provided a penetrating and unflinching look into all of us. We owe him a debt of gratitude for this work of art.” —Said Sayrafiezadeh, author of When Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir of a Political Childhood

Excerpt

1

There are sores which slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker.

It is impossible to convey a just idea of the agony which this disease can inflict. In general, people are apt to relegate such inconceivable sufferings to the category of the incredible. Any mention of them in conversation or in writing is considered in the light of current beliefs, the individual’s personal beliefs in particular, and tends to provoke a smile of incredulity and derision. The reason for this incomprehension is that mankind has not yet discovered a cure for this disease. Relief from it is to be found only in the oblivion brought about by wine and in the artificial sleep induced by opium and similar narcotics. Alas, the effects of such medicines are only temporary. After a certain point, instead of alleviating the pain, they only intensify it.

Will anyone ever penetrate the secret of this disease which transcends ordinary experience, this reverberation of the shadow of the mind, which manifests itself in a state of coma like that between death and resurrection, when one is neither asleep nor awake?

I propose to deal with only one case of this disease. It concerned me personally and it so shattered my entire being that I shall never be able to drive the thought of it out of my mind. The evil impression which it left has, to a degree that surpasses human understanding, poisoned my life for all time to come. I said “poisoned”; I should have said that I have ever since borne, and will bear for ever, the brand-mark of that cautery.

I shall try to set down what I can remember, what has remained in my mind of the sequence of events. I may perhaps be able to draw a general conclusion from it all—but no, that is too much to expect. I may hope to be believed by others or at least to convince myself; for, after all, it does not matter to me whether others believe me or not. My one fear is that tomorrow I may die without having come to know myself. In the course of my life I have discovered that a fearful abyss lies between me and other people and have realised that my best course is to remain silent and keep my thoughts to myself for as long as I can. If I have now made up my mind to write it is only in order to reveal myself to my shadow, that shadow which at this moment is stretched across the wall in the attitude of one devouring with insatiable appetite each word I write. It is for his sake that I wish to make the attempt. Who knows? We may perhaps come to know each other better. Ever since I broke the last ties which held me to the rest of mankind my one desire has been to attain a better knowledge of myself.

Idle thoughts! Perhaps. Yet they torment me more savagely than any reality could do. Do not the rest of mankind who look like me, who appear to have the same needs and the same passions as I, exist only in order to cheat me? Are they not a mere handful of shadows which have come into existence only that they may mock and cheat me? Is not everything that I feel, see and think something entirely imaginary, something utterly different from reality?

I am writing only for my shadow, which is now stretched across the wall in the light of the lamp. I must make myself known to him.