André Breton on Sadegh Hedayat's The Blind Owl

Sadegh Hedayat

Nasturtiums Purple

Of Sadegh Hedayat, who committed suicide in Paris on April 9th, 1951, reached us, in the beautiful translation of Roger Lescot, The Blind Owl, a hopeless sign in the night. Never more such a dramatic apprehension of the human condition has aroused such an examination  of our shell, nor such a knowledge of  timeless struggle in a maze of mirrors, with the attributes that are our common lot ... The acuity of the sensations and the violence of the impulses which like  Wölfli, make a confounding use of certain stereotyped images, gasping from one end to the other, those that Hedayat excludes from the world of the "scoundrel". A Masterpiece if any! A book that must find its place near the Aurelia of Nerval, the Gradiva of Jensen, the Mysteries of Hamsun, which takes part in the phosphorescence of Berkeley Square and the prisons of Nosferatu. (Jose Corti Library). A. B. [André Breton]



Sincere thanks to Rym Quartsi for the translation from original French.