The Blind Owl

An opium addict spirals into madness after losing a mysterious lover in this "extraordinary work" of modern Persian literature ( The Times Literary Supplement, UK).
Sadegh Hedayat was Iran's most renowned modern fiction writer, and his spine-tingling novel The Blind Owlis considered his seminal work. A classic of modern Iranian literature, this edition is presented to contemporary audiences with a new introduction by Porochista Khakpour, one of the most exciting voices from a new generation of Iranian-American authors.
A haunting tale of loss and spiritual degradation, The Blind Owltells the story of a young opium addict's despair after losing a mysterious lover. Through a series of intricately woven events that revolve around the same set of mental images-an old man with a spine-chilling laugh, four cadaverous black horses with rasping coughs, a hidden urn of poisoned wine-the narrator is compelled to record his obsession with a beautiful woman even as it drives him further into frenzy and madness.

Sadegh Hedayat was born in 1903 to an aristocratic family in Teheran, where he spent most of his life. In 1951, during a visit to Paris, he committed suicide.