Buried Alive is a famous short story by the 20th century Persian writer Sadgeh Hedayat. In the story Hedayat recounts the diary of the last days of a man who struggles with suicide. This story was recently published in a new book by the Hedayat office.

In this book, there is the original Persian text, a translation to Armenian by Mr. Khachik Khacher, who is a well known writer of short stories in Armenian, and an English text. The English translation is the work of Mr. Carter Bryant and was part of a collection titled "The Blind Owl" published under the editorship of Dr. Michael Hillman in the USA in 1978.

This book was launched publicly last week at a ceremony which was attended by many well known scholars of Persian and Armenian origin in a packed hall at the Artists Forum in Tehran. The program started surprisingly promptly. First Mr. Jahangir Hedayat, the head of the Hedayat Office in Tehran, made a short speech explaining the event and the book. He then introduced and gave some background information on Mr. Khacher the Armenian translator and the publishers (the Varjavand Publishing House). He also pointed to the fact that this is the second authentic book of stories of Sadegh Hedayat that has been published recently by the Hedayat Office in Tehran using the original manuscripts. The first one was "Three drops of blood", which was published by Nashreh Cheshmeh.

There has also been a book of Sadegh Hedayat pictures which have been very well received by the public in Iran and abroad, and another book of his paintings and drawings which is ready to be published. Mr. Jahangir Hedayat's easy narrative and pleasant soft voice made everyone listen carefully to all the information and anecdotes. He told the story of the "Buried alive" plot, the reasons why Hedayat. had such a fondness for Armenians, the story of his friendship with an Armenian painter and the fact that when he committed suicide in Paris in 1951, by turning the gas on in his small flat, he had made sure that he would be found by an Armenian couple he was very fond of.

Afterwards Mr. Kacher came to the podium and made a short speech during which he thanked Mr. Amir Cheltann for his kindness and guidance when translating the book.

We then were entertained by a short performance based on an extract of the story wonderfully staged by a group of young actors under the direction of the well known cinema and TV personality Mr. Seyrous Ebrahim-Zadeh. It was indeed very well done! After a enjoying a drama piece in Armenian, the ceremony came to a close and the guests could buy the new book. Your place was indeed empty (we missed you)!

... Payvand News - 9/2/05 ... --