Samad Behrangi

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Samad Behrangi

Samad Behrangi (Persian: صمد بهرنگی‎ , IPA: [sæmæd behrængiː]) (June 24, 1939 - August 31, 1967) was an Azeri Iranian socialist and writer. He is famous for his book for children, The Little Black Fish (ماهی سیاه کوچولو).

Born in Tabriz, Behrangi started teaching in village schools in Iranian Azerbaijan in 1957 which he continued for eleven years.

Behrangi also has stories in the Azerbaijani language and a few Azerbaijani translations from Persian poems by Ahmad Shamlou, Forough Farrokhzad, and Mehdi Akhavan-Sales.

Apart from children's stories, he wrote many pedigological 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's works for children and teens contain social themes of poverty and injustice, often with vague socialist or communist undertones, and are considered among the prominent works written for children in the Persian language in terms of structure and emotional impact. Some have criticised his alleged attempts to bias opinions of children towards socialist or communist ideas.

Behrangi drowned in the Aras river. For years, due to propaganda from the Iranian Left especially author Jalal Al-e Ahmad, his death was blamed on the Pahlavi regime. In 2003, former leftist activist and writer Faraj Sarkouhi officially announced that the story of Behrangi's assassination was forged in a smear campaign against the Shah^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Quotations

The Little Black Fish: We all die one day sooner or later, it does not matter how we die, what matters is what we die for.

[edit] Sources

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).