Abbas Milani – författare

As the 25th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution approached, Abbas Milani realized that very little, if any, attention had been given to the entire prerevolutionary generation. Political upheavals and a tradition of neglecting the history of past regimes have resulted in a cultural memory loss, erasing the contributions of a generation of individuals. Eminent Persians seeks to rectify that loss. Milani’s groundbreaking portrait of modern Iran reveals the country’s rich history through the lives of the men and women who forged it. Consisting of 150 profiles of the most important innovators in Iran between World War II and the Islamic Revolution, the book includes politicians, entrepreneurs, poets, artists, and thinkers who brought Iran into the modern era with brilliant success and sometimes terrible consequences. The biographies and essays weave a richly textured tapestry of lives, ideas, and events that reveals the true story of these decades in the life of a nation. The two volumes are divided into sections on politics, economics, and culture, each accompanied by an introductory essay that places the individual stories in their broader historical context. Drawn from interviews, extensive archival material, and private correspondence, Eminent Persians is a treasure trove of original documents, many appearing in print for the first time. Detailed sketches of personalities and personal foibles offer a compelling and highly readable account of this remarkable period of history on a human scale.

Born in 1949 to a prosperous family in Tehran, Abbas Milani grew up in an Iran of culture and tradition. He was sent to the United States for his studies, and it was there that he made his transition to adulthood, becoming active intellectually, sexually, and politically. Flush with 1960s idealism, he returned home in 1975, only to find his country utterly changed. His intellectual activities soon landed him in prison, and as his country crumbled before his eyes, he reluctantly moved back to the US permanently in 1986.

Milani’s impassioned memoir of coming to terms with the fate of his country is a loving account of the traditional Iran of his childhood, a painful portrayal of a generation of Iranians torn apart by their country and its politics, and finally, a message of hope, as he proves in the end that despite his hardships, he has achieved fulfillment in exile.

Abadan, 1951. Iran and Britain are bracing for battle over the continued British monopoly of Iran''s oil. Twenty-nine-year-old Ebrahim Golestan, who was to become a towering figure in Iranian cinema and literature, encounters Dylan Thomas, the famous Welsh poet, who died two years later at the age of thirty-nine from bronchial disease and pneumonia. More for his celebrity than an intimate knowledge of the subject, Thomas had been sent to Iran by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to write a script for a propaganda film about the company''s supposedly salutary role in the country. But for a few hours, Golestan and Thomas pause amidst the escalating standoff between their two countries and speak candidly about poetry, history, philosophy, and the perils of translation. Published here for the first time is the English translation (with facing pages in the original Persian) of Golestan''s unflinching portrayal of that encounter, revealing, all too clearly, how unsuited Thomas was for the task in hand.

Accompanying the translation is an account of Thomas''s time in Iran, written by Abbas Milani, Director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University, together with Alina Utrata, a Ph.D. candidate and Gates Cambridge scholar. Based on the poet''s letters, journals, and archival material in England and Wales, it helps to shed further light on an episode long shrouded in mystery and plagued by controversy. 

Publication of this book coincides with the hundredth birthday in October 2022 of Ebrahim Golestan. To mark the occasion, Professor Milani has included a personal and erudite introductory essay on Golestan''s life and work, examining his pioneering approach to film and his important contribution to Iranian literature, despite living in exile for most of his adult life. With a filmography and selected bibliography of the works by or about Golestan, this multifaceted volume offers not only a striking commentary on Iranian arts, politics, and history, set against the tense backdrop of the impending geopolitical clash between Britain and Iran, but also a commemoration of the work of one of the most eminent and influential representatives of Iranian culture in modern times.

Abadan, 1951. Iran and Britain are bracing for battle over the continued British monopoly of Iran''s oil. Twenty-nine-year-old Ebrahim Golestan, who was to become a towering figure in Iranian cinema and literature, encounters Dylan Thomas, the famous Welsh poet, who died two years later at the age of thirty-nine from bronchial disease and pneumonia. More for his celebrity than an intimate knowledge of the subject, Thomas had been sent to Iran by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to write a script for a propaganda film about the company''s supposedly salutary role in the country. But for a few hours, Golestan and Thomas pause amidst the escalating standoff between their two countries and speak candidly about poetry, history, philosophy, and the perils of translation. Published here for the first time is the English translation (with facing pages in the original Persian) of Golestan''s unflinching portrayal of that encounter, revealing, all too clearly, how unsuited Thomas was for the task in hand.

Accompanying the translation is an account of Thomas''s time in Iran, written by Abbas Milani, Director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University, together with Alina Utrata, a Ph.D. candidate and Gates Cambridge scholar. Based on the poet''s letters, journals, and archival material in England and Wales, ithelps to shed further light on an episode long shrouded in mystery and plagued by controversy. 

Publication of this book coincides with the hundredth birthday in October 2022 of Ebrahim Golestan. To mark the occasion, Professor Milani has included a personal and erudite introductory essay on Golestan''s life and work, examining his pioneering approach to film and his important contributionto Iranian literature, despite living in exile for most of his adult life. With a filmography and selected bibliography of the works by or about Golestan, this multifaceted volume offers not only a striking commentary on Iranian arts, politics, and history, set against the tensebackdrop of the impending geopolitical clash between Britain and Iran, but also a commemoration of the work of one of the most eminent and influential representatives of Iranian culture in modern times.