1904 - 1997
One of Iran's most important twentieth-century writers.
Alavi was born in Tehran into a wealthy merchant family. Both his father and grandfather were active supporters the Constitutional Revolution. His father, Mortezar Alavi, opposed the British and Russian presence in Iran and during World War I fled to Germany, where he became one of the founders of the Iranian exile journal Kaveh. In 1921, Alavi and his older brother joined their father in Germany; he finished high school there and completed the equivalent of a B.A. at the University of Munich. Alavi returned to Iran in 1928 and initially taught at a technical school in Shiraz. He joined the faculty of a German technical high school in Tehran during 1931. At this school he became acquainted with several other foreign-educated Iranians, especially Dr. Taqi Arani, and he eventually joined Arani's weekly study circle, which read and discussed the works of European Marxists and socialists. The members of Arani's group gradually expanded, and in 1937 the police arrested fifty-three men, whom they charged with forming an illegal Communist party; all were tried and sentenced, with Alavi receiving a seven-year prison term. Arani died in prison, but Alavi and the others were freed in 1941, following the joint Anglo-Soviet invasion and occupation of Iran.
Alavi's first collection of short stories, Chamedan (Suitcase), was published in 1934. His prison experiences resulted in a second collection of short stories, Varaq parehha-ye zendan (Paper scraps of prison; Tehran: N.p., 1942), and a powerful account of his trial, Panjah-o-seh nafar (Fifty-three persons; Tehran: N.p., 1944). Although Alavi was among the founders of the Tudeh Party in 1941 and participated in party meetings, literary pursuits rather than political activities seem to have occupied most of his time. He was a close friend of Sadegh Hedayat and regularly socialized with other prominent writers of the 1941 through 1953 period. He also continued to write, and his most famous work in Persian, the novel Cheshmahayesh (Her eyes), appeared in 1952. Alavi had left Iran for East Germany to take up a visiting appointment at Humboldt University when the 1953 coup d'état against the government of Mohammad Mossadegh took place. He decided not to return home, but remained in East Berlin, where he married a German woman and became a professor of Persian literature. He published several scholarly books about Iran in German during the 1950s and 1960s. After the Iranian Revolution, he made brief visits to Iran in 1979 and 1980.
Bibliography
Raffat, Donné. The Prison Papers of Bozorg Alavi: A Literary Odyssey. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1985.
— ERIC HOOGLUND
