Afshin Shahnehtabar
Iranians always regard the novel as an imported phenomenon and a product of Western literature and this has caused them to become a mere consumer, however, we have always had great writers in every period.
What we have forgotten is that the Iranian people have been the pioneers of the fiction writing industry and its prime example is Shahnameh by Ferdowsi which is a kind of a long story. But at present, there are complex problems facing Iranian writers to go global and this has alienated overseas audiences from our contemporary and even classic literature. The first problem is that our writers are extremely inclined to indigenous expressions so in many places, the text seems like gibberish for a non-Iranian.
The second issue is that due to the isolation of the Persian language across the world, and the weakness of the translators, we hardly had any works available to us, and if we were able to produce such works, few non-Iranian publishers dare to publish it and on the other hand, Iranian publishers have never taken any measures to export their works. The big problem is that Iran is not a member of the universal law of protection of authors or copyright law and this has forced Iran into staggering isolation. However, in recent years there have been scattered activities in this field and the authors and book publishers have begun to act on their own and this attempt is welcome.
The Candle & Fog Publishing House is the only publisher that has been active in introducing contemporary literature in the publication world, and with the introduction of dozens of works of fiction and novels or novelties to the global sales networks and continuous presence in large book exhibitions has taken a great step and the continuance of such trend can lead the country’s literature to a standing which has been denied to it for so many years.
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