The latest cultural headlines in the media.

One book is printed annually for every two Iranian children: author

Tehran Times: A children’s writer has criticized the low number of books printed for Iranian children.

“About thirty million children live in Iran while only 15 million books are published in Iran annually, i.e., every two Iranian children have only one new book,” Mostafa Rahmandust told the Persian service of the Iranian Students News Agency on Sunday.

“Cultural officials have not carried out their duties properly in the field of children’s literature… no progress has been shown in this field over the past few years,” he added.

Rahmandust, who is the director of the children’s section of the Iran National Library and Archives, said that book reading should be encouraged by families and it should then be reinforced by organizations such as the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults.

“Book reading is not approached professionally in Iran. Neither is a writer able to earn a living as a writer, nor is a publisher hopeful about the outcomes of his/her work. Also, families are not enthusiastic about the books that are being published,” he lamented.

Various figures have been published about Iran’s per capita book reading rate over the past six years.

In April 2008, then director of the Iran National Library and Archives Ali-Akbar Ash’ari lamented the lack of proper reading facilities and a shortage of the latest publications in Iran’s libraries.

He announced that Iran’s per capita book reading rate is two minutes in every 24 hours.

Ash’ari was censured for his remarks by some Iranian officials. Afterwards, they began to give higher rates for Iran’s per capita book reading.

The general director of the public libraries of Gilan Province announced on Saturday that Iran’s per capita book reading rate is 74 minutes in every 24 hours.

With a 84-minute per capita book reading rate, Gilan is “the most cultured province of Iran”, Mohammad Ahmadipur told the Persian service of the Mehr News Agency.

No source was mentioned for the data obtained by Ahmadipur.

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Iran, Azerbaijan to honor poet Shahriar

Tehran Times: Iran and Azerbaijan will hold a joint international congress on Iranian-Azari poet Mohammad Hossein Behjat Tabrizi, known as Shahriar, on July 16.

The congress will be held in the Iranian border city of Poldasht at Nakhchivan State University in the morning and at Enqelab Hall in the afternoon.

After reading papers at the congress, attendees will participate in the unveiling ceremony of Shahriar statue in Poldasht, the governer of Pakdasht Jalil Ghaffari told in a press conference on Saturday.

Seyyed Mohammad-Hossein Behjat Tabrizi (1906-1988), chiefly known by his pen name Shahriar, wrote in Persian and Azari.

Shahriar published his first book of poems in 1929, with prefaces by Mohammad-Taghi Bahar, Saeid Nafisi, and Pejman Bakhtiari.

His poems are mainly influenced by Hafez. His most famous poem, “Heidar Babaya Salam”, is considered to be among the best modern poems in the Azari language and has been made into a few plays.

The poem is very popular among the Azari people.

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Quran International Exhibition to host art exhibit

Tehran Times: An exhibition of visual arts displaying artworks with the central theme of Quranic concepts will open concurrent with the 19th International Holy Quran Exhibition at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Mosalla, running from July 28 to August 26.


The exhibit will be offering a variety of art including calligraphy, drawings, paintings, miniatures, graphic designs and earthenware.

Workshops on calligraphy, painting, miniature, and earthenware are also arranged on the side section of the program.

Interested artists are asked to register at www.ivaquran.ir and submit their artworks focusing on the stories in Quran and the great names of Allah to the secretariat of the exhibit before July 16.

The submitted works will later be judged by a jury panel to be selected for the exhibit.

Several sessions aimed at visual artists are also among the programs for the exhibit.

Tehran’s Mosalla will begin hosting the annual event just a few days ahead of the holy month of Ramadan (August 1). Lots of programs are always arranged for the exhibit.

Iranian and foreign publishers offer printed products as well as their Quranic software. Various translations of the Holy Quran in different languages are also available at the exhibit.

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Georgian Translation Of Iranian Novel Out Soon

Iran Daily: The Iranian novel ‘We Will Get Used to It’ by Zoya Pirzad will appear in the Georgian language in the near future.
Persian Literature Professor at Ivane Javakhishvili State University of Tbilisi Tea Shurgaia is translating Pirzad’s novel ‘We Will Get Used to It’ into Georgian.

In this novel as in her other books, Pirzad focuses on the everyday life of middle-class Iranian women, Mehr News Agency wrote.
Accompanied by translator Mzia Burjanadze, Shurgaia is also translating a collection of Iranian short stories entitled ‘Fourteen Iranian Sad Stories’.

Short stories by Zoya Pirzad, Goli Tarraqi, Ebrahim Golestan, Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Bahram Sadeqi, Bijan Najdi, and several other renowned Iranian writers were translated for the book.
In her second novel ‘We Will Get Used to It’, Pirzad artistically portrays the loneliness of the middle aged generation in Iran by narrating the life of two middle aged women working in real estate.
The daily confrontation of one of the characters with her daughter and aged mother, who represent the other two generations, manifests how the middle aged generation jammed between traditions of the older generation and modern expectations of the younger.
Zoya Pirzad gained fame after publishing three collections of short stories during the 1990s. Her first novel, ‘I Turned off the Lamps’, was printed in 30 editions in Iran and was translated into several languages.

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