An Interview with Mahmoud Dowlatabadi



Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

Mahmoud Dowlatabadi (Persian: محمود دولت‌آبادی) (born 1940 in Dowlatabad, Sabzevar) is an Iranian writer and actor. He is known as a realist writer of stories of rural life, in which he largely draws on his own experiences.

He was born in Dowlatabad, a village in the Sabzevar, north-western part of the Khorasan Province, Iran, and spent his youth helping his father with farming and tending the flocks, and reading tales of Persian folklore. He attended high school in Tehran but failed to attain a degree. He later joined the Anahita Drama Group. In 1975, he was arrested and spent a year in prison.

Dowlatabadi started writing in the 1960s and has published several novels, novellas, short story collections and plays for theatre. Hist first story, The Pite of Night, was published in 1962 in the Anahita Literary Magazine. Other significant works include his 1968 novel The Tale of Baba Sobhan, which was made into a motion picture by Masud Kimiai entitled "Khak" (Earth/dust; 1972) and his magnum opus, Kalidar, which he wrote between 1977 and 1984. (From Wikipedia)