The Blind Owl

An opium addict spirals into madness after losing a mysterious lover in this “extraordinary work” of modern Persian literature (The Times Literary Supplement, UK).

Sadegh Hedayat was Iran’s most renowned modern fiction writer, and his spine-tingling novel The Blind Owl is considered his seminal work. A classic of modern Iranian literature, this edition is presented to contemporary audiences with a new introduction by Porochista Khakpour, one of the most exciting voices from a new generation of Iranian-American authors.

A haunting tale of loss and spiritual degradation, The Blind Owl tells the story of a young opium addict’s despair after losing a mysterious lover. Through a series of intricately woven events that revolve around the same set of mental images—an old man with a spine-chilling laugh, four cadaverous black horses with rasping coughs, a hidden urn of poisoned wine—the narrator is compelled to record his obsession with a beautiful woman even as it drives him further into frenzy and madness.