By Syma Sayyah, Tehran

Last week on the anniversary of his birthday, the 6th Sadegh Hedayat award was held at a private ceremony at the house of his nephew and head of Sadegh Hedayat office, Mr. Jahangir Hedayat. Mr. Hedayat welcomed the invited guests who included the famous poet Mrs. Simin Behbahani, the well known writer Mr. Amir Hassan Cheltan as well as stage artists Mr. Cyrus Ebrahimzadeh, Ms Nahid Kabiri and Mr. Tariff.

Mr. Hedayat went on to inform the audience as why this year's award was not held at the Artists Forum as usual. This was due to a change of management and regrettably they cancelled events previously booked. He also referred to the fact that not only new editions of Sadegh Hedayat do not receive permission to be printed but sadly his previously printed materials also do not receive permission for re-publication.

We were delighted to listen to the narration to one of Hedayat's wonderful short stories Haj Agha Morad, performed by Ms Nahid Kabiri and Mr. Cyrus Ebrahimzaeh.

 

The judges for this year were Mr. Hossein Ghadimi, Ms Mitra Eliati and Mr. Media Kashigar. The head of the judges Mr. Hossein Ghadimi read out the judges' statement. He informed us that this year they had received short stories this year from about 750 writers from Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Iranian living abroad. The vast majority had sent their stories via the internet. He went on to state that 115 stories reached the second stage. One main rule for taking part in this award is that the writers may only send original stories that have not been entered in any other competition or been previously published anywhere, but many had to be disqualified as the story had either been published previously or had taken part in another competition. Consequently only 20 of the 115 stories reached the semi final and only 10 reached the final, and he read out their name and title of their works.

 

The winners of equal merits were then were announced by Mr. Jahangir Hedayat and each received a certificate of merit and package of Sadegh Hedayat's books. The three winners, all young lady writers, received their awards from Mrs. Simin Behbahani and they were:

• Shiva Ramezani for her story the Dammed

• Ms Faezeh Farhoumand Tehrani for her story Empty Cups

• Ms Emillia Nazari for her story Mr. Cesar is Sad (who lives in Canada but a cousin received her award)

The guests were invited to tea and cakes and usual congratulation and exchanges of greeting with friends. The ceremony was simple yet most warm and friendly and one can only hope that those in authority realize that public places belong to the public and this and other awards must find a public place to stage their ceremonies so than more of the public may attend and learn- inshahah!! Last year over 300 attended the ceremony at the Artists Forum, but this year the audience was a few dozen. Here are some pictures for you.