Author: Sadeq Hedayat
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Pages: 112
Publication date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0143136583
The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat is a haunting and psychologically complex masterpiece of modern Iranian literature, following an isolated narrator whose grip on time, memory, and reality steadily unravels. Told in two interwoven parts, the novel moves between surreal, opium-fueled visions and stark, unsettling truths, as recurring images—an old man beneath a cypress tree, a silent woman offering a flower—blur the boundaries between dream and confession. In this acclaimed new translation, Hedayat’s intimate and tormented voice emerges with striking clarity, placing the novel alongside works by Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky in its exploration of obsession, alienation, and the darkest corners of the human psyche.