A book on Mehdi Akhavan-Saless (1929-1990), one of the pioneers of blank verse in Persian literature, has been published in Persian in New Delhi.
Entitled “The Position of Mehdi Akhavan-Saless in Contemporary Persian Epic Poetry”, the book was authored by Atiqur Rahman, the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization announced in a press release on Wednesday.
Rahman is the director of the Department of Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Islamic Studies at Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal.
The New Delhi-based Educational Publishing House is the publisher of the book.
Akhavan-Saless, who also was a musicologist, was well acquainted with Persian classical poetry. However, he focused on free verse poetry.
He composed over twenty books including “Arghanun” and “Winter”.
He taught Persian literature at the University of Tehran and several other academic centers, and was sentenced to several years in prison and exile for his political activities during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Akhavan-Saless died at 62 and was buried in Tus beside the tomb of Ferdowsi, the poet of the Persian epic masterpiece the Shahnameh.
MMS/YAW
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