Samad Behrangi

Samad Behrangi

Samad Behrangi (Persian: صمد بهرنگی‎, Azerbaijani: صمد بهرنگی, Səməd Behrəngi, [sæmæd behrænɡiː]; June 24, 1939 - August 31, 1967) was an Iranian teacher, social critic, folklorist, translator, and short story writer of Azeri extraction. He is famous for his children's book, The Little Black Fish.

Life

He was born in Tabriz to a lower-class Azerbaijani family. He finished elementary school and three years of secondary school before enrolling in a teacher training school, finishing the program in 1957. In the next eleven years, while teaching Persian in rural Azerbaijani schools, he attained a B.A. degree in English from Tabriz University.

Literary works

Apart from Children's Stories, he wrote many pedagogical essays and collected and published several samples of oral Azerbaijani literature. His folklore studies have usually been done with the help of his colleague Behrooz Dehghani, who helped publish some of Behrangi's works after his early death. Behrangi also has a few Azerbaijani translations from Persian poems by Ahmad Shamlou, Forough Farrokhzad, and Mehdi Akhavan-Sales.

Death

Behrangi drowned in the Aras river and his death was blamed on the Pahlavi regime. According to Persian BBC News, Hamzeh Farahati who accompanied him at the time of the death narrates that the incident was just a common drowning and revolutionaries' allegations of governmental involvement originated from their need to fabricate a martyr.

Some of his works

• The Little Black Fish
• Investigations into the Educational Problems of Iran (کندوکاو در مسائل تربیتی ایران )
• Oldooz and the talking doll
• Oldooz and the crows
• The Little Black Fish
• Talkhoon
• one peach and 1000 peaches

Quotations

"so easily can death call on me but I have to keep up living as long as I can. However, if I face the death some day_ that I will_ doesn't matter. What matters is the effect of my life and death on others'."

Photo gallery

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  Samad Behrangi's grave

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  Samad Behrangi's grave

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See also

• Tabriz
• Imamieh

Sources

• Milani, Abbas. "Samad Behrangi," in Eminent Persians Vol. 2. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2008, pp. 838–842
• Preface and backcover text from Samad Behrangi, Talkhoon va Chand Ghesse-ye Digar (Talkhoon and other stories), Behrangi Publishings, Tabriz, 1998, ISBN 964-90517-2-4.
• Sirous Tahbaz, Samad Behrangi va Mahi-e Koochooloo-ye Daanaa (Samad Behrangi and the Wise Little Fish).

External links

• Samad Stories
• Samad Stories: The Little Black Fish
• Samad Stories: 24 Restless Hours
• Samad Stories: The Little Sugar Beet Vendor
• Samad Stories: The Tale of Love
• Samad Stories: Talkhun
• Samad Stories: In Search of Faith
• Samad Behrangi's life. A biography by Professor Iraj Bashiri, University of Minnesota.
• (Azerbaijani)/(Persian) Samad Site
• (German)/(Persian) Samad's life and the stories
• (Persian) Samad Behrangi's death accident - from Hamzeh Farahati's memoir