Abadan, 1951. Iran and Britain are bracing
for battle over the continued British monopoly of Iran''s oil.
Twenty-nine-year-old Ebrahim Golestan, who was to become a towering
figure in Iranian cinema and literature, encounters Dylan Thomas, the
famous Welsh poet, who died two years later at the age of thirty-nine
from bronchial disease and pneumonia. More for his celebrity than an
intimate knowledge of the subject, Thomas had been sent to Iran by the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to write a script for a propaganda film about
the company''s supposedly salutary role in the country. But for a few
hours, Golestan and Thomas pause amidst the escalating standoff between
their two countries and speak candidly about poetry, history,
philosophy, and the perils of translation. Published here for the first
time is the English translation (with facing pages in the original
Persian) of Golestan''s unflinching portrayal of that encounter,
revealing, all too clearly, how unsuited Thomas was for the task in
hand.
Accompanying the translation is an
account of Thomas''s time in Iran, written by Abbas Milani, Director of
the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University, together with Alina
Utrata, a Ph.D. candidate and Gates Cambridge scholar. Based on the
poet''s letters, journals, and archival material in England and Wales, it
helps to shed further light on an episode long shrouded in mystery and
plagued by controversy.
Publication of
this book coincides with the hundredth birthday in October 2022 of
Ebrahim Golestan. To mark the occasion, Professor Milani has included a
personal and erudite introductory essay on Golestan''s life and work,
examining his pioneering approach to film and his important contribution
to Iranian literature, despite living in exile for most of his adult
life. With a filmography and selected bibliography of the works by or
about Golestan, this multifaceted volume offers not only a striking
commentary on Iranian arts, politics, and history, set against the tense
backdrop of the impending geopolitical clash between Britain and Iran,
but also a commemoration of the work of one of the most eminent and
influential representatives of Iranian culture in modern times.