Kermani’s Tales of Majid translated into English

An English version of Houshang Moradi Kermani’s famous book ‘The Tales of Majid’ is to be published soon. It is translated by American translator Caroline Croskery.

The book will be printed by Candle & Fog, a publishing house in Tehran and London. The publisher brings to the attention of the English readers a selection of best-selling Persian novels and stories through translations.

The book includes 39 chapters detailing a series of events faced by the leading character Majid, a teenage orphan who lives with his grandmother in the city of Kerman in central Iran, Tasnim News Agency wrote.

Majid works in a bakery during the summer and sometimes after school in order to supplement the money that his grandmother receives as pension from her late husband’s insurance policy.

There are some similarities between the fictional attributes of Majid and the author Kermani. For example, Majid is an orphan, while in real life Kermani lost his mother when he was young. Additionally, Majid and Kermani did not have any siblings and were poor while growing up.

Kermani, 72, published his first story 47 years ago. Since then he has written many novels and short stories worthy of praise -- stories that have become popular among those fascinated by the Persian language.

He is best known for children’s and young adult fiction works. His most popular books are the ‘Tales of Majid’, ‘The Boot’ and ‘Cucumber’s End’.

‘You’re No Stranger Here’, ‘The Water Urn’ and ‘Sweet Jam’, are three other books by the renowned author that have been rendered into English by Croskery.

Croskery has translated several other notable works by Iranian writers and poets, including the bestseller Bamdad-e-Khomar ‘Drunken Morning’ by Iranian novelist Fattaneh Haj-Seyyed-Javadi, 70.

She has translated the complete works of Iranian children’s author and poet Erfan Nazar Ahari into English in a compilation entitled ‘We Are All Sunflowers’; ‘In the Twinkling of an Eye’ and ‘Democracy or Demo-Crazy’, both by author, novelist, journalist and screen writer Seyyed Mehdi Shojaee, 55; and ‘A Vital Killing: A Collection of Short Stories from the Iran-Iraq War’ by war writer and essayist Ahmad Dehqan, 49.

Candle & Fog intends to release the TV series adaptation of ‘Tales of Majid’ with English subtitle in the West. It also aims to put a pack containing both the series and the book on Amazon website.