Sadiq Hidayet (born February 17, 1903, Tehran – died April 9, 1951, Paris) is the leading prose and short story writer of modern Iranian literature.
He was born on February 17, 1903 in Tehran and studied at the French High School in this city. In 1925, he went to Europe to continue his education. Although he was interested in dentistry for a while, he gave up dentistry to study engineering. After four years in France and Belgium, he returned to Iran and worked in various jobs for short periods.
He wrote his first stories while in Paris. He went to India in 1936 and learned Sanskrit. While here he studied Buddhism and translated some of the Buddha's writings into Persian.
Sadik Hidayet eventually devoted his entire life to the study of Western Literature and to researching Iranian history and folklore. He was most interested in the works of Guy de Maupassant, Chekhov, Rilke, EA Poe and Kafka. Hidayet has written many stories, short novels, two historical dramas, a play, a travelogue, and a series of satirical comedies and sketches. His writings also include many literary criticisms, research on Persian folklore, and translations from Middle Persian and French. Sadik Hidayet is considered to be the author who made Iranian Language and Literature a part of international contemporary literature.
In the following years, due to the socio-political problems of the time, he began to criticize the monarchy and the clergy, which he saw as the cause of Iran's decline. Through his works, he tried to show that the abuses of these two institutions were the cause of the deafness and blindness of the Iranian nation. Hidayet, who became estranged from his environment, especially from his contemporaries, talks about a state of melancholy, despair and death that can only be experienced as a result of discrimination and oppression in his latest work, Kafka's Message.
Sadik Hidayet's best-known work is The Blind Owl, published in Bombay in 1937.
Sadık Hidayet, who likes to listen to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and is known to be an opium addict, also dealt with painting. His surviving paintings were put together by Hassan Qa'emian. While some do not find artistic value in these works, according to others, these are pictures of the future.
Bozorg Alevi, his friend of twenty-five years, describes his death as follows: “He searched for an apartment with gas for days in Paris, and found what he was looking for on Championnet Street. On April 9, 1951, he closed himself in his apartment and after plugging all the holes, he opened the gas tap. A friend visiting him the next day found him lying on the kitchen floor. He was immaculately dressed, well-shaven, and had money in his pocket. The remains of the burned manuscripts lay on the ground beside him.”
He is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery, where Yılmaz Güney is also buried.
works
Öykü
- Buried Alive (Zindeh be-gur) 1930
- Mongolian Shadow (Sayeh-ye Moghol) 1931
- Three Drops of Blood (Seh qatreh khun) 1932
- Twilight (Sayeh Rushan ), Aleviye Hanım (Alaviyeh Khanum), Mr Hav Hav (Vagh Vagh Sahab) 1933
- Blind Owl (Bûf-i kûr) 1937
- Wandering Dog (Sag-e Velgard) 1942
- Haji Aga (Haji Aqa) 1945
- islamic caravan (islamic convoy) (karevane eslam)
Game
- Pervin Daughter of Sasan (Parvin dokhtar-e Sasan) 1930
- Mazyar (Maziyar) 1933
Travelogue
- Isfahan: Half of the World (Esfahan nesf-e Jahan) 1931
- On the Wet Road (unpublished) (Ru-ye Jadeh-ye Namnak) 1935
review-research
- Khayyam's Terâne (Rubaiyat-e Hakim Omar-el Khayyam) 1923
- Man and Animal (Ensan and Animal) 1924
- Death (Marg) 1927
- The Benefits of Vegetarianism (Favayed-e Giyahkhari) 1927
- Kafka's Message 1948 (Taranehha-ye Khayyam)