The Blind Owl

The Blind Owl (Persian بوف کور, Buf -e Kur ) is a short novel by the Iranian writer Sadeq Hedayat. He is regarded as the masterpiece.

The gloomy novel is about the confession of a painter against his shadow with outline of an owl. He tells him about his nightmares, in which he dealt with the death and its impact on life.

The book was published in 1936 during the reign of Reza Shah in a limited edition in Mumbai where Hedayat was staying at the time. After the abdication of Reza Shah in 1941, the novel was published in Iran and immediately had a strong resonance.

André Breton called The Blind Owl as a classic of surrealism.

The work was filmed in 1987 by the Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz.

Interpretation

The work will also indirectly relating to the Tibetan Buddhism in particular the Bardo Thodol.

German -language publications ( selection)

• Sadeq Hedayat: The Blind Owl ( = Bibliothek Suhrkamp 1248 ). Translation of Bahman Nirumand. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-518-22248-1.
• Sadeq Hedayat: The blind owl. Translation by Gerd Henninger. Goethe and Hafez, Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-9807909-2-4.