Rasool Sorkhabi, Ph.D.
Children’s and juvenile books are among the primary resources conveying information about overseas countries. This article compiles a bibliography of children’s and juvenile books published in English about Iran dating back to 1923; however, only four books were published prior to 1970 in contrast to 115 books after 1970, of which 9 were published in the 1970s, 6 in the 1980s, 10 in the 1990s, 51 in the 2000s, and 39 in the 201Os. The increasing trend of these publications is related to several factors, some related to Iran (modernization, tourism, revolution, wars, and political conflicts) and others related to spread of information technology and population growth. The bibliography is categorized thematically into General (36 titles), Ancient Persia (25), Modem History including both Pahlavi and Islamic Republic periods (38), Persian Myths and Folktales (11), and Cultural Traditions (5). The vast majority of these books were written by non-Iranian professional writers.
INTRODUCTION
Children’s (5-12 years old) and juvenile (12-18 years old) literature is an important area of writing and publishing; it provides essential resources for the education and literacy of children and teenagers. People often think that writing brief books for children is easier than writing lengthy books for adults. But this is a misconception. Just as talking with children differs from chatting or arguing with adults, children’s and juvenile literature requires its own skills and sensibilities (Klein, 2016; Frederick, 2018). I am not aware of a systematic effort to compile a list of children’s and juvenile books on Iran in English. Even the magnificent work by Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the West: A Critical Bibliography (1987), has ignored this category. This article, based on the author’s years of book collection, aims to fill this gap to some extent. As this bibliography shows, there is a large number of books on Iranian history, land, people, and culture published in English for children and young readers. These books have played an important role in conveying information and images about Iran to children and young adults in the English-speaking countries, and it is important to compile and chronicle them. This bibliography can also be helpful for the education of second-generation Iranian youth who live in the USA and other English-speaking countries but would also like to read and learn about their homeland’s history and culture in English.
PRE-1970 BOOKS
In my research I found that that the bulk of children’s books on Iran have been published since 1970. For the period before 1970, I should especially mention the following four books.
Persia (part of the “Peeps at Many Lands” series) by H.F. Haig (A. & C. Black, London, 1923, vi+ 88 p.) covers the following chapters: Her history; The country and the climate; The religion of the Persians; Zahak and Faridun; Rustam son ofZal; Tehran; Travelling; Half of the world; Life in the “Anderon;” and Agriculture and trade. It includes eight color illustrations. This book was published in 1923 during the reign of Ahmad Shah, the last Qajar king. This book, therefore, ofer interesting information the Iran of those days as portrayed by a British writer.
Haig begins the book with a comment on the size and name of Iran: “Persia is larger than France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and Italy together, but so much of it is desert that its population is not much more than twice that of London. The English name of the country is taken from one of its provinces, which the Greeks called Persis, and the modern Persians call Pars or Fars, but the Persians themselves call the land Iran – the country of the Aryan, or noble race – and try to persuade themselves that it has existed as an independent kingdom for six thousand years, but it has been so many times conquered and ruled by foreigners and cut up into small States, each independent of the other, that these pretensions must be attributed to national vanity” (p. 1).
On the geography, Haig mentions the names of important historical towns in Iran, but remarks that “Persia is a country which is very difficult to get to know well, as the towns lie far apart, separated by great tracts of desert. As there are no railways in the country except for one short line running from the Russian frontier to Tabriz, traveling is slow and tiring. There is, however, not very much variety in the country, and all the towns bear a strong family likeness to one another” (p. 13).
On the life style, Haig remarks that “the houses are built in two parts: the outer, or birun, is given over to the men, while the women live in the inner part, or anderun, which is reached through a curtain-covered doorway … The floor is covered with carpets, a few of the best are hung upon the wall … As almost everything is done upon the floor, and as there is so little furniture in a room, the floor-coverings are of great importance” (p. 72-73). At times, Haig becomes very simplistic and opinionated. For instance: “The national dress of the Persians is extremely ugly, but it is seldom worn now. It consisted of narrow black trousers, an absurd little skirt, or rather frill, about nine inches long, mounted on a broad band and worn well below the waist-line, and a straight coat fastening down the front and with long, narrow sleeves” (p. 78).
The Splendor of Persia by Robert Payne (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1957, xvi+234 p. with 19 black and white photographs) contains ten chapters: Land and the people; Great kings; Persepolis the sacred city; Divine radiance; The Parthians; The Sasanians; Persia under the Conquerors; The Persian poets; Great shahs; Awakening. The book is written by a prolific British- American writer who studied under Professor Arthur Upham Pope at the Asia Institute in New York. Robert Payne visited Iran in 1949 and published a travelogue entitled Journey to Persia (Dutton, 1952).
Payne takes a systematic and sympathetic approach to the history and cultural richness of Iran. For instance, he lists 60 English and European words that were originally derived from the Persian language: Azure, bazaar, candy, caravan, cheque, chess, cinnabar, cypress, dervish, divan, exchequer, gazelle, henna, jackal, jargon, jasmine, jasper, julep, jungle, khaki, lemon, lilac, lime, Magi, magic, margarine, marguerite, muscadel, musk, myrtle, naphtha, narcissus, orange, palanquin, paradise, peach, peacock, pear, puttee, pajama, rice, rook, saccharine, saffron, sash, satrap, scarlet, scimitar, seersucker, shawl, sherbet, spinach, sugar, taffeta, tapestry, tiara, tiger, tulip, turban, and verandah.
The Land and People of Iran by John Sheannan (Adam & Charles Black, London; Macmillan, New York, 1962, 96 p. with 20 photographs). The book is part of the “Lands and People” series of the publishers. Most of the books in this series were actually translated into Persian and published by the Bongah-e trajom-e va nashr-e ketab in Tehran; but this one on Iran was not probably translated. Chapters in the book include: Approach; Early history; Later history; Tribes and tribesmen; Villages and villagers; Oil; Water; Some Iranian towns; Bazaars and festivals; Travel and food in Iran; Now and the future. The book ends with appendix on Iran’s statistical data, a table of important dates in Iran’s history, and books for further reading.
Sheannan opens his book with a note on Iran that is still informative to many people around the world: “We are going to talk about the country whose modem name is Iran. We know it better as Persia. Its name was changed officially from Persia to Iran in 1935, but Iran is an ancient name for it too. It means ‘The Land of the Aryans.’ The present Shah has said that either name, Persia or Iran, may be used interchangeably … If you are speaking Persian, you would call the language Farsi. The Persian language is written in Arabic characters. The Persians have added a few letters, such as those standing for ‘p’ and ‘ch’, which Arabs do not use. Arabic and Persian read from right to left of the page … The Persian language has some Arabic words, but officially Persians want their language to be as free as possible from them … Persian belongs to the family of the Indo- European languages, as do English, French, and German, whilst Arabic is a Semitic language, as is Hebrew” (p. 7-8).
In contrast to Haig’s 1923 description of traveling in Iran, Shearman writes: “The roads oflran are remembered long after one has visited and left the country. There is the road that stretches endlessly before you, buff and stony, across the plateau; the road winding down to cultivated valley from some high mountain pass; the road that drops you six thousand feet, in a series of hairpin bends, from above Shiraz to the coast of the Persian Gulf; the desert road that leads you east to Meshed, across wasters familiar only to the camel. Very few roads are asphalted, most of them being covered with loose gravel” (p. 79). Here is another observation from Shearman: “Two material things – water and oil – are all important to Iran today, and two spiritual things – Islam and history” (p. 13). Sheannan mentions a population of 20 million for Iran in 1961, compared to 14 million people in 1921.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Children’s and juvenile books are categorized according to the age range of readers. Picture books are appropriate for pre-readers (up to 5 years old). Early reader books aim to improve reading skills of children (ages 5 to 7). Chapter books are appropriate for children ages 7-12. Young adult books are mainly for teenagers (ages 12-18). The bibliography of 115 books presented above shows that a large number of English books have been published on Iran for children of various ages in the past 50 years. Some of these are out of print, but the vast majority of them (new or used) can be purchased from online booksellers, and each public or school library most likely possess some of these books.
Books particularly on the history of Iran either pertain to the ancient (pre-Islamic) Iran or the modem Iran during the Pahlavi and Islamic Republic regimes. The vast part of the Iranian history from the eight to the nineteenth century is included briefly in the general books.
Obviously, young adult books contain more pages and more content and information as well as commentary and ideas. For example, in The Iranians: How They Live and Work (1977), John Abbott analyzes Iran’s situation in the 1970s and comments on the Shah’s rule describing his efforts for development of the country as well as his absolute dictatorship and suppression of political dissent.
Books on “Ancient Persia” and “Mythology and Folk Tales” focus on particular topics, while “General” books offer overall images of Iran to the reader. These images include a country rooted in two distinct legacies and histories: (1) Pre-Islamic Persian Empire blended with the Zoroastrian religion, and (2) Islamic Iran (or particularly Shia Iran); the latter image has been heightened after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But as some authors have pointed out, this demarcation is not rigid and impermeable. Persians: Masters of Empires (Time-Life Books, 1995) ends with these words: “The Arabs began to show an appreciation for Persian literature and history, to embrace Persian modes of government and administration, to value and imitate Persian architecture and other visual arts … In the 10th century, Muslim rulers of Iran proved even more enthusiastic soon adopting what they considered to be a Persian lifestyle and officially endorsing a rebirth of the Persian language. In the end, Muslims nurtured and spread the memory of Persia. Wherever Muslims penetrated other cultures, from the Iberian Peninsula to southern Asia, they transmitted the genius of Persia to a wider world.”
Images of “Modem Iran,” as evidenced from the titles of the books, are dominated by “Islamic Revolution”, “Iraq-Iran War,” “a Country in Crisis,” “a Nation in Conflict,” a geopolitical “Hotspot,” an “Issue” with “Opposing Viewpoints”, and a Shia theocracy. Nevertheless, many of the books depict Iran as country with rich history, culture, and landscape with many interesting places to visit from Tabriz and the Caspian in the north to Shiraz and Kerman in the south. Although the capital Tehran is usually the first port of entry for many visitors, it is misleading to limit Iran to a few streets in northern Tehran.
I was particularly drawn to a slim but profusely illustrated book entitled Iran in Pictures (“Visual Geography Series”). First published in 1968 (when Iran’s economy was “growing at a rate of 12 per cent a year”) by Sterling, New York, the book has gone through several updates, the latest of which was released in 2004 by Lerner Publishing, New York. The book contains brief chapters on the Land, History, Government, People and Economy. During the recent decades, Iran witnessed seismic shifts in economy and politics (both domestic and foreign), and its population grew from 24 million in 1968 to over 80 million today.
The vast majority of the books are written by Western authors who specialize in children’s literature. Only a few of the books are written by Iranian authors living in the USA or England; the most prolific among them is Massoume Price. Some of the books are written by scholars and deserve a special attention for their content. For example, John Russell Hinnells (1941-2019), author of Persian Mythology (1977), was an authority on Zoroastrianism and professor of comparative religion at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies of the University of London.
Some of the juvenile works in English deserve to be translated into Persian, especially those illustrated with amazing photographs, such as The Persians (Jim Hicks and the editors of Time- Life Books, 1975), Persians: Masters of Empire (Time-Life Books, 1995), Persian Mythology (John Hinnells, 1997), and Wise Lord of the Sky: Persian Myth (Time-Life Books, 1999).