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Iran loses most celebrated contemporary poet |
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July 25, 2000
TEHRAN (AP) - Celebrated Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou, who endured prison and self-imposed exile in pursuit of greater freedom, has died after battling severe diabetes. In a statement Monday, Iran's Writers Association said the 74-year-old writer died Sunday. "Iran has lost its greatest contemporary writer and poet," said Simin Behbahani, a renowned writer herself. "He was a maker of history, and himself became a part of history in the end," Behbahani said in an interview, her voice filled with emotion. Shamlou was born in Tehran on Dec. 12, 1925. He began a lifelong struggle for greater political freedom and established himself as a literary figure even before he was past his teens. He was arrested and jailed several times under the repressive regime of the U.S.-backed shah. He left Iran for the United States in 1977. Shamlou returned after the shah was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution. He also criticized the new religious establishment, but he devoted his later life almost exclusively to literature. In 1991, Shamlou was awarded the Freedom of Expression prize by New York-based Human Rights Watch. Shamlou was a playwright, journalist, critic and translator. But it was his poems that set him apart in a nation where poetry is still widely read, memorized and quoted in daily conversation. Shamlou is credited with reforming Persian poetry, introducing untried ways and techniques that gave greater flight to his imagination. "On night," one of his numerous poems, demonstrates his rich imagery: "At night "When the silver moonstream makes a lake of limitless plain, "I spread the sails of my thoughts in the path of the wind." The poet underwent two major operations in 1997, one to amputate a gangrenous right leg. His health never recovered. He married three times and had four children. He will be buried Thursday, the Writers Association said. |