Iranian literature is a term that has been used mainly in reference to Persian literature, but the term has other meanings as well:
- Literature in any other Iranian language (both extinct and present), such as the Avesta, or those written in:
- extinct: Old Persian, Middle Persian, Sogdian, Khwarezmian, Parthian, Saka, Old Azari
- modern: Kurdish, Gorani, Zazaki, Pashto, Balochi, and others.
- Literature in languages of modern Iran, including Persian, Kurdish, Azerbaijani Turkish, Balochi, Talyshi, Armenian, Arabic, and other languages spoken in Iran.
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers—such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a façade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as wastepaper instead of being read.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)