Author Simin Daneshvar passes away at 90

Eminent author and translator Simin Daneshvar, known as the first Iranian female novelist, died at her home in Tehran. She was 90. Daneshvar died of natural causes associated with old age however a recent bout with a bad case of the flu also aggravated her health problems, literary critic and scholar Ali Dehbashi told the Persian service of Fars News Agency. Her funeral procession will take place on Sunday, starting from the Vahdat Hall and she will be buried in the Artists Section of Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery, he added. Daneshvar is mostly known as the author of social-historical novel “Savushun” (1970) which has been translated into 17 languages around the world. In “Savushun”, she chronicles the life of a Persian family during the Allied occupation of Iran during World War II in Shiraz. The story is narrated through the eyes of Zari, a young wife and mother, who copes with her idealistic and uncompromising husband while struggling with her desire for traditional family life and her need for individual identity. Born in Shiraz in 1921, Simin Daneshvar got her Ph.D. in Persian Language and Literature from the University of Tehran. At age 27, she published her first book titled “Extinguished Fire” a collection of short stories, first-ever written by an Iranian female author. At the same year, she married a controversial author of the time, Jalal Al-e Ahmad. Although she was always known for her independent literary characteristics, her marriage gave her an opportunity to participate in literary coterie of that time visiting Sadeq Hedayat and Nima Yushij. Al-e Ahmad died suddenly in 1969 at the age of 48. The childless couple talked about problems brought to their social as well as family life by the infertility problems in two separate books; “A Stone upon a Grave” by Jalal Al-e Ahmad and “Jalal’s Sunset” by Simin Daneshvar. “A City Like Heaven”, “To Whom Shall I Say Hello?”, “Wandering Island” and “Wandering Cameleer” are other works. The last part of the trilogy “The Wandering Mountain” has not published yet. Daneshvar, who was the first director of the Iranian Writers’ Association, has also penned a collection of articles under the title of “Art Recognition and Admiration”. She has also translated “The Chocolate Soldier” by George Bernard Shaw, “Enemies” by Anton Chekov, “Cry, The Beloved Country” by Alan Paton, and “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne into Persian. In a message, the head of the Cultural Committee of the Iranian Majlis Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel expressed his condolences to literati and her family over the demise of Simin Daneshvar.