Iranian Political Satirists

This volume surveys political satire as a journalistic genre in Iran since the latter days of the Qajar dynasty to the present, thus spanning one century and more. It is an important resource, but it also provides an analysis. Moreover, this volume is a rare effort to answer a question that looks simple but is very complicated: “Why would someone produce satire, knowing that this act might be followed by dangerous consequences?”, and to find out what motivates political satirists. For this aim, nine prominent political satirists have been interviewed: writers and cartoonists, men and women, those who live abroad and those who still live in Iran. The author analyses this data in relation to, among other things, the main theories of humor to provide a descriptive report for each satirist’s motivations as well as the strength of each motivational element in a general comparative context.

A classic of Modern Persian literature, Charand-o Parand (Stuff and Nonsense) is a work familiar to every literate Iranian. Originally a series of newspaper columns written by scholar and satirist Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, the pieces poke fun at mullahs, the shah, and the old religious and political order during the Constitutional Revolution in Iran (1906–11). The essays were the Daily Show of their era. The columns were heatedly debated in the Iranian parliament, and the newspaper was shut down on several occasions for its criticism of the religious establishment. Translated by two distinguished scholars of Persian language and history, this volume makes Dehkhoda’s entertaining political observations available to English readers for the first time.

Satire, irony and humour have long been features of Persian literature's rich tradition, taking various forms from the coarse and obscene to the subtle and refined. Humour in Iran is a close and comprehensive study of satire and humour – in verse as well as prose – over the eleven-hundred years since the emergence of classical Persian literature. Combining Persian original texts with their English translations, it covers a range of texts and authors, from the lampoon in Ferdowsi's great epic of the ancient kings in the tenth century, through such master satirists as Obeyd Zakani, Sa'di, Rumi, Khayyam, Hafiz, Anvari, Sana'i, Khaqani, Suzani, Qa'ani, Yaghma, and so on. The book also includes twentieth century authors such as Iraj, Dehkhoda, Bahar, Eshqi, Aref, Hedayat, Jamalzadeh, Al-e Ahmad and more. A must read for scholars and students of humour and satire as well as Persian literature and Middle Eastern studies, and it will also appeal to general readers interested in ribald humour and satire.

When my friend had finished reading the Safe House novel, he told me, "I could not sleep all night. You always think that it is possible for such things to happen in Iran." I laughed and said, "No, such things only happen in stories." Ten years later, the Iranian Police system actually put in action the Safe House novel.Ebrahim Nabavi

The first publication to include full colour reproductions of the artist's drawings throughout his career; it includes a 1973 interview between the artist and Iranian poet, Esmail Kho'i translated into English for the first time. The catalogue and exhibition it accompanies are co-curated by Shirin Neshat and Nicky Nodjoumi, two well known contemporary Iranian artists who provide a particular perspective on the artist and his subjects Ardeshir Mohassess: Art and Satire in Iran brings together approximately 70 of Mohassess's rarely-seen drawings, on loan from the Library of Congress in Washington DC and from several private collections in the US. Many of these have never been published in a book or catalogue, and several of the early works were censored in his native country. The book reveals this artist's significant impact on both the international art scene and news media. The catalogue (checklist of the exhibition) is organised in two sections: works created before the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and those created after the Revolution. Ardeshir Mohassess has been living in self-imposed exile since 1976; after enduring harassment from his native country's national police, he fled to France. In 1979 he moved to the United States, where he has remained. Today, he is considered to be one of the most significant living Iranian artists. AUTHOR: Shirin Neshat was born in 1957 in Qazvin, Iran. Neshat moved to the United States in 1974. Neshat has exhibited her photography, film, and video works internationally and is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Infinity Award for Visual Art from the International Center for Photography (New York), and First International Prize at the 48th Venice Biennale (Italy). Nicky Nodjoumi was born in Kermanshah, Iran in 1942. After graduating from CUNY in 1975, he returned to Iran with plans to teach art. Soon after the 1979 revolution, Nodjoumi had a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran; the show was labelled anti-revolutionary and he was forced to leave Iran. Hamid Dabashi was born in 1951 in the south-western city of Ahvaz in the Khuzestan province of Iran. He is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious Chair in Iranian Studies. He is a renowned cultural critic and award-winning author. Esmail Kho'i is a renowned Iranian poet and writer. 83 colour & 3 b/w illustrations

Postcolonial Satire: Indian Fiction and the Reimagining of Menippean Satire positions postcolonial South Asian satiric fiction in both the cutting-edge territory of political resistance writing and the ancient tradition of Menippean satire. Postcolonial Satire aims to disrupt the relationship between postcolonial literature and magic realism, by discussing the work of writers such as G. V. Desani, Aubrey Menen, Salman Rushdie, and Irwin Allan Sealy as one movement into the entirely subversive realm of satire. Indian fiction, and the fiction of other colonized cultures, can be re-construed through the lens of satire as openly critical of a broad spectrum of political and cultural issues. Employing the strengths of postcolonial theory and criticism, Postcolonial Satire expands upon the postcolonial works of these authors by analyzing them as satire, rather than magical realism with satirical elements.