Simin Daneshvar
| Simin Dāneshvar سیمین دانشور |
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|---|---|
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| Born |
28 April 1921 Shiraz, Persia |
| Died | 8 March 2012 (aged 90) Tehran, Iran |
| Nationality | Iranian |
| Alma mater | University of Tehran |
| Occupation | Academic, novelist, fiction writer, literary translator |
| Spouse(s) | Jalal Al-e-Ahmad (1950−1969, his death) |
Simin Dāneshvar (Persian: سیمین دانشور) (28 April 1921 – 8 March 2012) was an Iranian academic, novelist, fiction writer and translator, largely regarded as the first major Iranian woman novelist. Daneshvar had a number of firsts to her credit. In 1948, her collection of Persian short stories was the first by an Iranian woman to be published. The first novel by an Iranian woman was her Savushun ("Mourners of Siyâvash", also known as A Persian Requiem, 1969), which went on to become a bestseller. Daneshvar's Playhouse, a collection of five stories and two autobiographical pieces, is the first volume of translated stories by an Iranian woman author. Being the wife of the famous iran writer Jalal al-Ahmad she had a profound influence on his writing, she wrote the book "the Dawn of Jalal" in memory of her husband. Simin was also a very good translator, of her translations we can name "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekhov and "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her last book is currently lost and was supposed to be the last book of her trilogy which started with "the lost island". Al-Ahmad and Daneshvar never had a child.
Simin Daneshvar was born on 28 April 1921 in Shiraz, Persia. Her father, Mohammad Ali Danesvhar, was a physician. Her mother was a painter. Daneshvar attended the English bilingual school, Mehr Ain. Daneshvar entered the Persian literature department at the University of Tehran in the fall of 1938. In 1941, her third year of university, her father died, and to support herself she began writing pieces for Radio Tehran as the "Nameless Shirazi." She wrote about cooking and food as well as other things. She also began writing for the foreign affairs section of a newspaper in Tehran, since she could translate from English.
In 1948, when she was 27, she published Atash-e khamoosh (Quenched Fire). It was the first collection of short stories published by a woman in Iran, and as such gave her a measure of fame, but in later years Daneshvar refused to republish the work because she was embarrassed by the juvenile quality of the writing. Daneshvar continued studying at the university. Her Ph.D. dissertation, "Beauty as Treated in Persian Literature," was approved in 1949 under the supervision of Professor Badiozzaman Forouzanfar. In 1950, Daneshvar married the well-known Iranian writer Jalal Al-e Ahmad. In 1952, she traveled to the United States as a Fulbright Fellow working on creative writing at Stanford University with Wallace Stegner. While there, she wrote in English and published two short stories. When she returned to Iran, she joined the faculty at University of Tehran.
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