This page brings together Javad Mojabi’s 2018 address on contemporary Iranian literature, press coverage of his visit to the Uwe Johnson Prize ceremony, and a literary excerpt available in German translation.
Remarks on contemporary Iranian literature
Address delivered at the Uwe Johnson Prize ceremony, September 2018
Mojabi describes two broad periods in modern Iranian literature. The first, shaped by the constitutional movement and later political change, sought both to recover Iranian cultural roots and to engage with modern ideas from abroad. Writers drew on Persian literary traditions while responding to international literature, social justice, and the demands of a changing society.
He then considers a younger generation shaped by the 1979 Revolution, the Iran–Iraq War, translation, and digital communication. Its writing is more connected to global culture and often turns toward individual experience. Mojabi highlights an awareness of mortality, distance from rigid political ideology, the growing presence of women writers, and a more cosmopolitan outlook. He closes by calling for an active dialogue in which cultures can both learn and teach.
The address concludes with a reflection attributed to Uwe Johnson: a novel is not a revolutionary weapon and does not produce immediate political effects.
Press coverage
- “Wie in der DDR: Iranische Autoren und die Zensur” (“As in the GDR: Iranian Writers and Censorship”), by Frank Wilhelm, September 2018. View the newspaper scan.
- “Zwischen Hochkultur und Fundamentalismus” (“Between High Culture and Fundamentalism”), Nordkurier, 18 September 2018. View the newspaper scan · Open the PDF.
Literary excerpt
Plötzlich wieder (“Suddenly Again”) is a story by Javad Mojabi translated into German by Sonia Seddighi and Bahman Nirumand. The original German text remains identified by its translators; this page does not present a new English translation of the literary work.
Read more about Mojabi in his biography and explore his selected poetry collections.