Ponte 33 presents “Fear and tremor” by Gholamhoseyn Saedi.

Translated and published by Bridge 33 edition in collaboration with ISMEO The six stories of Fear and Tremor, published by Gholamhoseyn Saedi in 1968, arise from his experience as a doctor in Persian Gulf, where poverty and the very difficult living conditions created a constant atmosphere of fear and insecurity. Two years earlier Saedi had published Ahl-e hava (People of the Wind), an anthropological essay on the populations of the same area which then formed the basis for the stories of Fear and Tremor. The stories of Fear and Tremor transfigure the strange world that Saedi had discovered during his travels and his scientific research in narrative form. In the magical world of his stories, the waves of the sea and the play of light and shadow in the darkness of the evening contribute to canceling the boundaries between real and fantastic. The characters are all equally dominated by a metaphysical feeling of fear and insecurity that becomes a real 'crisis of presence', controllable, but not always, through the use of magical practices. The tight rhythm and the open ending of the stories allows the reader to extend the plot in his imagination and thus become a victim of fear and tremor.

THE AUTHOR

Gholamhoseyn Saedi (1936-1985) is one of the most representative writers of the sixties and seventies and a leading figure in the struggle for the political and social renewal of Iran. He was one of the founders of the Association of Iranian Writers, founded in 1968 above all to protect writers and publishers from heavy government censorship. His political activity as a member of the Tudeh Communist Party and the particularly stinging criticism of the Shah's work earned him several years in prison and torture. Released in 1975, he was arrested again after the Revolution. In 1982 he left Iran permanently and settled in France where he died in 1985.