Sole joint translation by Jalal and Simin republished

TEHRAN,March 15(MNA) -- “The Forty Parrots”, which is the sole joint translation by Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Simin Daneshvar has been republished after the death of the Iranian author couple. The story was selected from “The Wisdom of India”, which was authored by B. H. Wortham who published it in London in 1911. The first edition of the Persian version was released in 1965. The new edition, which has been illustrated by Ardeshir Mohasses, has been published with the help of Iranian translator Gholamreza Emami. “An artistic style was applied in the translation of the profound and classic story,” Emami said. “My late artist friend, Ardeshir Mohasses, had kindly prepared some amazing illustrations for the book and I also added Rumi’s version of the story to the end of the book,” he added. According to the Iranica encyclopedia, “The Forty Parrots” is the designation of collections of entertaining stories about the wife of a merchant and a pair of parrots, several versions of which are current in Persia and which are derived from older collections called Tutinameh (Book of the Parrots). “I don’t know why we arbitrarily desired to put a dance in the belly of prose and to copycat ‘Kalilah and Dimnah’ (a classic Persian literary work). Sorry, if it is distorted,” Jalal Al-e Ahmad had said in an introduction to the book. Al-e-Ahmad had passed away in September 1969 and his wife Daneshvar died at 90 years of age last week.