Mahmud Doulatabadi (Iran)

In Dostoevsky’s words, pain creates poetry, says Mahmud Doulatabadi (b.1940) the Grandseigneur of Persian literature. Doulatabadi’s “The Colonel,” which recently has been published in German, is a pitch black book about fear and death.

It is the first major literary work about the Iranian revolution of 1979 and its consequences; to date it has not yet been published in the author’s homeland. The plot of the book covers less than 24 hours, yet Mahmud Doulatabadi succeeds in drawing a mental portrait of a country caught in a labyrinth of nightmarish situations.

HOST: Barbara Wahlster SPEAKER: Bahman Nirumand

In cooperation with the Berlin Artists Program of the DAAD for the 10th international literature festival berlin