Scarcity and Neglect in Iranian Children’s and Young Adult Literature
The totality of what can be found in international languages about Iranian children’s and young adult literature is very scarce. Although orientalists started writing and researching about Persian literature from the 16th century and presented valuable findings and corrections in the 19th and early 20th centuries, even then, very few of them spoke about Iranian children’s and young adult literature.
Perhaps the oldest references to this topic can be found in the research of Valentin Zhukovsky on folklore. In the second half of the 20th century, a few lines referring to children’s literature are also found in the writings of William Hanway. Furthermore, Soviet and Eastern Bloc orientalists have written several ideological articles about the works of Sobhi Mohtadi, Samad Behrangi, and others. To this very short list, at most, a few more lines, such as the references by Elwell-Sutton, might be added.
However, for years now, there has been no news of pure and original Western research on Persian literature. The majority of new Western research and works in various research institutes, universities, and institutions are primarily based on studies published within Iran, and very often, whenever we encounter research on Persian literature, especially contemporary literature, it is the result of the efforts of Iranian-born individuals and Iranian immigrants. Of course, exceptions still exist; for example, may God bless Christophe Balaÿ and grant a long and dignified life to Ulrich Marzolph. Nevertheless, among all these, one cannot find significant and extensive research on Iranian children’s and young adult literature. For instance, in the entirety of Professor Marzolph’s books and articles, one can collectively find only two or three pages of references to children’s literature. Even in the book «Adabiyāt-e Novīn-e Fārsī» (Modern Persian Literature), which is a report on the critical bibliography of Iranian books from 1977 to 2000, compiled by Christophe Balaÿ and his colleagues at the French Institute of Iranian Studies, we find only brief and scattered references to Talebof and Samad Behrangi, and finally a few lines about contemporary figures like Sosan Taghdis. To my knowledge, other esteemed researchers of contemporary Iranian literature, such as Gilbert Lazard, Paul Struckmann, Michael Craig Hillmann, and others, have not paid attention to Iranian children’s literature.
Although Persian language chairs in some universities around the world rightly use children’s and young adult literary texts for learning Persian, and occasionally articles and research by those students are produced about these books, we still do not find any indication of worthy contemplation, profound findings, or deep analysis.
Aside from Western academics fascinated by Iranian and Islamic mysticism who delve into ancient texts, if anyone is found to analyze contemporary works, they are usually more concerned with religious and sexual minorities, underdevelopment, prejudices, superstitions, and the like, and it is highly unlikely that they would also think of today’s Iranian children’s and young adult literature.
Thus, the most serious and authoritative non-Persian text about Iranian children’s and young adult literature remains the entry on children’s literature in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, written by the late Ehsan Yarshater, which was published thirty-five years ago.
It is here that the importance of searching for and identifying the few potential works on Iranian children’s literature among reputable global studies becomes clear. Naturally, children’s literature researchers with comparative or thematic approaches will be compelled to pay attention to some Iranian works. Additionally, encyclopedic and reference studies are impossible without entries related to Iran, but the point is, who will scientifically and systematically seek to identify and enumerate these exceptions?
This search would naturally be the responsibility of research centers such as the Research Institute of Culture, Art and Communication; the Research Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies; the Center for Children’s Literature Studies at Shiraz University; the Iranology Foundation; the Academy of Persian Language and Literature; encyclopedias, etc.; or Iranian cultural attachés in other countries; or the secretariat of the World Book Award of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and similar institutions.
