Abbas Maroufi, an Iranian Novelist Passes Away for the Second Time
Abbas Maroufi was an influential novelist who wrote one of the most famous Persian novels, ‘Symphony of the Dead’, which is an essential novel in Iran’s modern literature.
Abbas Maroufi, the Iranian novelist, poet, and journalist, passed away at 65 years, due to cancer, in Germany. He was an influential novelist who wrote one of the most famous Persian novels, ‘Symphony of the Dead’, which has been translated into English. This book is an essential novel in Iran’s modern literature, and until today, it has been the subject of hundreds of reviews and academic theses in Iran.
Maroufi was forced to migrate to Germany when he was editor-in-chief of ‘Gardon’ magazine (from 1990 to 1995), which the government banned in Iran. Under the pressure of radical forces in Iran, Maroufi was sentenced to death for publishing the magazine about 30 years ago. However, an appeals court rejected the sentence and sentenced him to be whipped, imprisoned, and banned from writing for two years. As a result, Maroufi had to leave Iran.
In Germany, he tried to publish ‘Gardon’ magazine again, but he wasn’t successful. Maroufi was interested in ‘Sadegh Hedayat’ and he founded ‘The Hedayat House of Art and Literature’ in Berlin and started to hold his story writing classes in the house. Also, his novels ‘Symphony of the Dead,’ ‘The Year of Turmoil’ and ‘Fereydoon had Three Boys’ were translated into German.
He passed away in exile in Germany on Tuesday; however, he had once died already when he was forced to leave his country, Iran.
