Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh - Biography

Biography

Sayyed Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh, the founder of the Persian short-story genre, was born in Esfahan into a middle-class family. The date of his birth is uncertain; years between 1892 to 1896 have been mentioned and, by the end of his life, even he himself was not certain of the actual year. The year 1895 has traditionally been taken as the year of his birth.

Jamalzadeh's father, Sayyed Jamal ad-Din Esfahani, was a progressive mullah and preacher who became a constitutional revolutionary, delivering raging sermons which inspired his son but cost him his life; he was executed in 1908 on the order of Mohammad-Ali Shah Qajar who considered him among the most dangerous of his enemies. "As to the ulama in the constitutional revolution, there were varying degrees of support for a constitution and of awareness of its implications. Among the popular preachers there were a number in the tradition of Afghani — men brought up with a religious education and filling, more than Afghani, religious functions, notably preaching, but who were not themselves believers in any usual sense. These included most notably two preacher friends from Isfahan — Malek al-Motakallemin and Sayyed Jamal ad-Din Esfahani, the former the father of the historian of the constitutional revolution, Mehdi Malekzadeh, and the latter the father of Iran's first great modern short-story writer, Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh. Malek al-Motakallamin was long an Azali Bábí, although by the time he became a preacher in the revolution he appears to have lost even this belief, while Sayyed Jamal ad-Din Esfahani was described by his son as a freethinker. They both recognized the appeal of Islam to the masses and bazaaris, however. In Tehran, the two became major preachers of the revolutionary and constitutional cause, explaining it in familiar Muslim terms emphasizing such Islamic concepts, particularly central in Shi'ism, as Justice and Oppression. Mohammad-Ali Shah considered them among the most dangerous of his enemies and had them both killed in 1908, as he did the editor of Sur-e Esrafil, Mirza Jahangir Khan, also of Bábí background." The young Jamalzadeh lived in Iran only until he was twelve or thirteen. Thereafter, he lived in Lebanon, where he attended the Aintoura Catholic School (1908) near Beirut, in France (1910), and in Switzerland where he studied law at University of Lausanne and later at University of Burgundy in Dijon, France.

After his father's death, Jamalzadeh's life took a turn for the worse, but thanks to many supporting friends and to occasional paid teaching jobs, he survived starvation. By the time of World War I, still in his early age, he joined a group of Iranian nationalists in Berlin and, in 1915, founded a newspaper (Rastakhiz) for this group in Baghdad. During this time he also worked for the periodical Kāveh (1916). In 1917, he published his first book Ganj-e Shaye-gan (The Worthy Treasure). An overview of Iran of the start of the 20th century, Ganj-e Shaye-gan deals with Iran's socio-political and economic problems, a major contribution which bridges the gap between literature and science. In the same year he represented the Nationalists at the World Congress of Socialists in Stockholm. His later years, until 1931 when he settled in Geneva and worked thereafter for the International Labour Organization, were spent in temporary employments, such as one at the Iranian embassy in Berlin.

During all these years, Jamalzadeh had very little contact with Iran. But that did not bar him from learning Persian on his own. Drawing on his scant experiences gained at a young age, he wrote about the lives of contemporary Iranians. His preoccupation with the use of language and his Dickensian style of writing, including repetitions, piling up of adjectives, and using popular phrases, quickly remind the reader of Jamalzadeh's background and of his sincere intentions. However, his physical distance from the scenes of the events described in his stories somewhat compromises the accuracy of his works.

Jamalzadeh's major work Yeki Bud Yeki Nabud (یکی بود یکی نبود - Once Upon a Time), published in 1921 in Berlin, did not reach Iran until a year later, and when it did, it was not received favourably. The public, especially the clergy, loathed Jamalzadeh's portrayal of their country to the degree that copies of the book were burned in public squares. A collection of six short stories, Yeki Bud Yeki Nabud deals with the social and political conditions in Iran around the start of the 20th century, a subject that up to then had been outside the purview of writers and poets in general. Moreover, interwoven with this is a considerable amount of militancy against Western interference in Iran and an open mockery of religious fanaticism. Jamalzadeh's simple and colloquial style, combined with a measured humour, enhanced the impact of his writings, making his stories such as Yeki Bud Yeki Nabud and Farsi Shekar Ast (Persian is Sugar) even more poignant than otherwise would be the case.

This hostile public reaction affected Jamalzadeh to the degree that for the next twenty years he refrained from engaging in any literary activities. He began writing again in the 1940s, but by that time he had lost the dexterity that imparted conciseness, novelty of form, originality of ideas, a biting sense of humor, and a tight structure to his earlier stories. Tautologism, a tendency toward using sage remarks, making mystical and philosophical speculations, and disregard for order became the hallmark of his later writings. Sahra-ye Mahshar (Armageddon) (1947), Talkh-o Shirin (Bitter and Sweet) (1955), Kohne va Now (Old and New) (1959), Qair az Khoda Hichkas Nabud (None Existed Except God) (1961), Asman-o Risman (The Blue Yonder and Rope) (1965), Qesse-ha-ye Kutah Bara-ye Bachcheha-ye Rish-dar (Short Stories for Bearded Children ) (1974), and Qesse-ye Ma be Akhar Rasid (Thus Ends Our Story) (1979) were written during this phase of his literary activity. Although Jamalzadeh continued to criticise the court and the clergy, some of his works of this period lack his original unique Persian style, even though he is at times as biting and as veracious as in his earlier writings.

In addition to Persian, Jamalzadeh was fluent in French, German, and Arabic. He translated many books from the latter languages into Persian.

Jamalzadeh died, over a hundred years old, in Geneva, Switzerland.