About the Author

Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi (1936-1986) is the most important twentieth-century Persian language dramatist. He was also a prolific ethnographer, editor, dramatist, and fiction writer. Trained as a psychiatrist, his psychological insights are evident in his writings. With more than forty works of fiction, non-fiction, and drama to his credit, Sa'edi is an embodiment of the literary spirit of his generation which had its beginning in the early years after the Second World War and died with the installation of clerical rule in 1979. His audience was mostly limited to literary circles until 1968 when the director Dariush Mehrjui made a film based on a script by Sa edi. The Cow became a critical success both in Iran and abroad and brought Sa'edi popular recognition. After the Islamic revolution, Sa'edi fled to exile in France, where he resurrected the highly regarded literary magazine, Alefba. He died in 1985 at the age of forty-nine in exile there, mainly due to the effects of alcoholism. Edris Ranji is a doctoral student in English Literature. He has translated numerous notable English literary works into Persian including those of Eudora Welty, Tobias Wolff, Angela Carter, David Foster Wallace, William Wordsworth, D. H. Lawrence and Alice Munro. The Mourners of Bayal is his first book-length translation from Persian into English.