Mahmoud Hosseini Zad

Mahmoud Hosseini Zad
Native name سید محمود حسینی‌زاد
Born (1946-04-08) 8 April 1946
Firuzkuh, Iran
Occupation Translator, writer, interpreter, literature jury member
Language Persian
Nationality Iranian
Citizenship Iran
Period late 20th-early 21st century
Genre Short story, theater, novel
Notable works
  • Asseman, kipp-e abr (The Sky, Full of Clouds), 2013
  • Asseman-e khis (The Wet Sky), 2012 (translation)
  • In barf key amade... (When Did This Snow Fall ...?), 2011
  • Alice, 2009 (translation)
Notable awards

Mahmoud Hosseini Zad (Persian: سید محمود حسینی‌زاد) (born 8 April 1946) is an Iranian translator of the contemporary German literature.[1] He is also writer, interpreter, literature jury member and docent.

In the early 70s, Hosseini Zad graduated from the university of Munich in political science. Then he came back to Iran and began to work as a translator for the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, IRIB, and also began to teach German language in the University of Tehran, Azad University, Tarbiat Modares University and language institutes in Tehran. At the same time he published two collections of short stories.[2]

He has translated the works of Bertholt Brecht, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Judith Hermann, Ingo Schulze, Uwe Timm, Peter Stamm, Julia Franck. He also wrote some plays, for which he was awarded.[3]

Invitation by the Centre Dürrenmatt Neuchâtel

Mahmoud Hosseini Zad in the discussion circle in the Centre Dürrenmatt Neuchâtel

In April 2015, the Centre Dürrenmatt Neuchâtel organized a reading and a discussion circle with Mahmoud Hosseini Zad as part of the Printemps culturel. He spoke about the Dürrenmatt's popularity in Iran, his own activities as a translator and he read from his translations. He said about the Dürrenmatt's works in an interview with Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen:

Dürrenmatt is really famous and popular as a pessimist philosopher, who has a ironical bitter look to life...the government of Iran has a talent to interpret everything in his own way. In Dürrenmatt, it sees a critic of western capitalism, especially when he writes about the atomic bomb. Dürrenmatt criticize the West. The government and its censorship agency consider Dürrenmatt's works as a criticism of the west, as a criticism of capitalism.... These wicked and fighting the wicked. These are Dürrenmatt's themes. Humans and history and the philosophy. These are in the Dürrenmatt's works, but we iranians are mostly fascinated by the Dürrenmatt's philosophical aspect. Iranians love philosophy
Mahmoud Hosseini Zad, [4][5]

Hosseini Zad said about the censorship in Iran:

The limits of censorship are not clear in Iran. We have unfortunately censorship agency or control agency. They give us no catalogs or lists at all about what we as translators are allowed and what we are not allowed. they have themselves no control on these controls... When you bring a book to a control agency, you don't know, whether it will be allowed or will not be allowed to be published. For example the words about sexuality or eroticism. Maybe it seems funny, but these words are in the first priority of censorship, then the political words are in the second priority. After that on the third place come the words about alcohol drinks.
Mahmoud Hosseini Zad, [6]

He said about the cultural policy changes after Ahmadinejad:

There are already movements. A simple example is that the publisher of my translations in the Ahmadinejad's regime had 17 totally forbidden works. These works didn't receive any publish permissions but nowadays there are some freedom and hope, but there is also a gap and we hope it will be removed soon.
Mahmoud Hosseini Zad, [7]

Translations

Own works

Awards

References

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