Shohreh Miremadi is the translator of the book published by Saless. Actually written sixty years after the plague of 1665 swept through London, Defoe brings the city to life in all of its hardship and fear.
With a wealth of detail, “A Journal of the Plague Year” seems almost a firsthand account, taking readers through the neighborhoods, houses and streets that had drastically changed with the rising death toll.
The bustle of business and errands gives way to doors marked with the cross to signify a house of death, as well as the dead-carts transporting those struck down to the mass graves as the dead rise in number to nearly 100,000.
As the epidemic progresses and the narrator encounters more stories of isolation and horror, Defoe reveals his masterful balance as both a historical and imaginative writer.
Defoe was also a journalist and spy, who gained enduring fame for his novel “The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: of York, Mariner”.
He is notable for being one of the earliest practitioners of the novel and helped popularize the genre in Britain.
In some texts, he is even referred to as one of the founders, if not the founder, of the English novel.
A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote more than five hundred books, pamphlets and journals on various topics, including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural. He was also a pioneer of economic journalism.
Source:Tehran Times