Parviz Daryush, translator and literary critic died at the age of 79 following three weeks of hospitalization due to lung disease last week.

Parviz Daryush is one of the pioneers of the art of translation of contemporary world literature in Iran that has translated many major literary works by great authors such as Herman Hesse, Ernst Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Mark Twine, and tens other modern writers and thinkers.

Ali Dehbashi who participated in his funeral said about him, 'Parviz Daryush was one of the last members of the same generation as Sadegh Hedayat, Nima Yushij, Jalal Alahmad, Mojtaba Minavi, Parviz Khanlari with perhaps only Ebrahim Golestan, Anvar Khamehii and one or two other members of this generation being still alive.

Although Parviz Daryush started his cultural work by translating poetry, but the translation of 'Book of Psalms' was his first and last collection that Nima Yushij has acclaimed greatly in one of his letters.

Parviz Daryush was still a young man when together with Jalil Ziapour, Bahman Mohasses and Gholamhossein Gharib formed the group of Khorous Jangi (Fighting Cocks) working in the field of satire and caricature. A few years later he started his professional life as translator with the translation of one of D. H. Lawrence's books.

His work had two important peculiarities. The first one was his choice, as he never translated any book on recommendation of the publisher and most of the works he translated were by authors who were introduced to Iranians for the first time. The second peculiarity of his work that is virtually unique is his choice of Persian language equivalent to the original language. For example, Siddharta in Persian follows the same form as Beihaghi and in Mobi Dick he has used the language of Sadii. The amazing ability of Daryush in using Persian language can be observed in his choice of language forms for his translations.

Daryush was very much fascinated by the culture and civilization of Indochina and he has translated Suzuki's voluminous work on Zen still waiting to be published. Translation of Confucius' work 'Between laughter and cry' is one of his masterpieces.

Among his articles 'Waking Remembrance' on Sadegh Hedayat and 'Musician of Mountains' on Nima Yushij are the most celebrated.

-- Translated for payvand.com by Roya Monajem, royamonajem@gmail.com

... Payvand News - 3/16/01 ... --