| The short story is the most highly developed form of modern Persian literature, but despite its importance for the cultural and literary history of Iran, it has yet to be examined comprehensively. As a preliminary step for such an effort, this dissertation presents a bio-bibliographic survey of all known authors who published Persian short stories in collections. The survey includes biographical sketches, where possible, and lists all known published books by each author, with comments and information on publishing history. A total of 200 authors are represented, 409 short story collections, and 1,715 citations. The listings are grouped alphabetically by author and then by genre, including translations from other languages to Persian. Each citation shows U.S. library sources if known. Also included is an appendix of tables and charts, showing chronologies, statistics for multiple editions and sizes of editions, and listings of the numbers of books and short story collections published in each year from 1921 to 1981. An introductory overview traces the history of the development of the short story in Iran, with mention given to the major writers and comments concerning the impact of social conditions on literary production during the various phases.;The assembled data shows clearly that the popular literature, a major component of the literature of this period, has been virtually ignored by students of Iranian literature and culture. This problem is explored in Chapter Two, which reviews the ways in which this type of literature has already been used by students of the literary and intellectual history of England and France. The suggestion is made that the popular literature in Iran is an important part of the history of literacy in that country, and the close coincidence of the development of public literacy with that of the short story is discussed. |
