The novel Rooye Note Beman by Akram Pedramnia is a modern retelling of Sophocles’ Antigone, narrated through the voices of two sisters, Gordi and Soody.
Gordi, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology, is determined to recover the body of her executed brother and give him a proper burial, believing he deserves a grave just like her other two martyred brothers. Her mission, however, is met with significant obstacles, including the steadfast opposition of her sister, Soody. Soody contends that the preservation of the living must take precedence over honoring the dead.
As the story unfolds, we follow the sisters’ profound struggles as they navigate their opposing beliefs amidst the immense oppression and uncertainty of their time. Despite their differences, both women, in their own ways, seek to protect life, love, and existence, even under the heavy weight of doubt and adversity.
This compelling narrative delves deeply into the enduring complexities of familial duty, moral conviction, and the resilience of the human spirit.
The Persian version of Rooye Note Beman is published by Nikaan House.
NIKAAN HOUSE PUBLISHING- 250 Pages
Latest Project
James Joyce
Translation By Akram Pedramnia
Ulysses (Volume IV)
Fiction, Novel
The fourth volume of the Persian translation of Ulysses, which consists of episodes thirteen and fourteen, in 368 pages, is now available.
The Ulysses Translation and Research Integrated Project will be published in six volumes by Nogaam Publishing in London with the support of Literature Ireland.
The aim of this project is to translate James Joyce’s masterpiece as well as the many references, annotations, and notes surrounding this work of art into Persian. In order to remain faithful to the main source and “Not to change even a single word” the volumes are being published outside of Iran.
By Akram Pedramnia
The Winter in Suma Hills
Fiction, Novel
In the years leading to the Islamic revolution of Iran, Setareh, a young peasant woman, tries to correspond with her husband, Farhad, a political prisoner. While working in a tobacco field to pay her rent in the northern of the country, she writes regularly to the prison where, she is told, her husband is staying. In these letters, she reveals a harsh life caused by poverty and the torment she endures from her community. Her life is interrupted when she receives the replies.
‘Pleasure or pain, is it?’
Translating a work that employs inventive literary techniques is an already arduous task, however, negotiating with a system of imposed censorship makes the process of translating and publishing increasingly more intricate. The Iranian Ministry of Cultural and Islamic Guidance declared my uncensored translation of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (which I had had to publish and disseminate underground) an obscene publication, prohibited further sales, and ordered its confiscation. The censorship of words, themes, and sometimes complete works is a common hazard for Persian translators and frames my current work translating Ulysses. In this essay, I explore the challenges of translating modernist works, like Lolita, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night, as well as Ulysses, under a system of imposed censorship and discuss the methods I employ to evade it.
The Latest
Ulysses
Ulysses is a modernist novel by Irish writer James Joyce. The Uncensored Translation of Ulysses into Persian by Akram Pedramnia.
Lolita
Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. Translated by Akram Pedramnia and is available in Iran’s Underground Markets
Tender is the Night
The fourth and final novel completed by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Uncensored translation 0f Tender is the Night by Akram Pedramnia.
Ziggurat
Maani, an immigrant archeologist, tries to understand love, pain, and struggles of humans lived thousands of years ago in the ancient city of the Sialk.
The Cry of the Desert
Goli, an Afghan-Iranian six years old girl learns that she will be prohibited from ever entering school and getting an education, for the sole reason that her father is an Afghan.
News, Articles and Interviews
Pen USA for the imprisoned writers in Iran. An interview with VOA
Global support for Iranian protesters prevents the intensity of the regime’s violence
Follow @pedramnia ON TWITTER
Ulysses Book Review from BBC Persian along with a few words from Akram Pedramnia
Happy #Bloomsday to Literature Ireland
Iranian-Canadian novelist and translator Akram Pedramnia translated the novel into Persian.
Reading Ulysses in Persian
Ulysses translator, Akram Pedramnia, project in @Bloomsday Macedonia FB Page.
The Reproduction of the Social Order in Literature
This essay is a discussion on maintaining the domination, oppression and inequality of the marginalized groups of societies
A Letter to Virginia Woolf
Videos
Akram introduces her novel :
The Winter in Suma Hills
On Translation of Lolita into Persian and No to the hegemony of the censorship
One of the strongest-willed translators active today. Confronting pernicious state-sponsored censorship, watching as dubious publishers eight time zones away put her work into print without permission or payment.
- Peter O’brien, The Globe and Mail
Her translations are distributed as pirated or over the Internet without her earning a cent – but that does not bother Akram Pedramnia. She is even pleased. Thanks to her, Iranian readers can read Lolita or Tender Is the Night
- Angela Schader, Neue Zürcher Zeitung