A writer has rewritten Persian classical love stories in the form of “modern unrhymed poetic prose.”
Mohammad-Reza Yousefi says ‘Love Stories’, published by Nardouneh Press in four volumes, has prose rendering of famous love stories in Persian classical literature including Nizami’s ‘Vamaq and Azra’, ‘Bijan and Manijeh’, and ‘Khosrow and Shirin’.
“The innovative method renders these love stories in unrhymed poetic prose, which in Persian contemporary literature is called ‘She’re Sepid’ or more commonly ‘blank verse’,” MNA quoted Yousefi as saying.
The author of ‘Wolves Do Not Cry’ believes that recreation of a literary work is more artistic than merely rewriting it. “Stories from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (The Epic of Kings) and folkloric mythical stories have undergone this recreation process,” he said.
Great Gems
“Persian literature is a bonanza of great gems of storytelling art, and modern experimenters should exploit the possibilities. It provides them with wide spectra of literary motives including love stories, allegorical tales, and mystic lines of Masnavi of Rumi,” the writer added.
Yousefi was born in the western province of Hamedan in 1953. He’s an author, playwright, lecturer and folklore expert. Involved in children’s literature for more than four decades, he has released 250 titles. He was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2000 and has won several international awards. In 1996, he received an accolade from the International Board on Books for Young People and two years later his ‘A Star Called Giant’ won the board’s top prize.
‘Mirror Stories’ has been named top book by Life Magazine and some of the books he has written have been selected for the Munich Library. His books have been translated into several languages. ‘Grasslands’, a movie based on his ‘The Story of Migration’ has won the Best Indian Film award.
