Quick Facts
Biography
Shahrokh Meskoob (Persian: شاهرخ مسکوب 1924 in Babol, Iran – April 12, 2005 in Paris, France), was an Iranian writer, translator, scholar and university professor.
Life
Meskoob was born in the city of Babol in north of Iran. He started reading novels and literature since he just finished the primary school.
He then continued his school in Isfahan and then returned to Tehran in 1945 to study law in the University of Tehran. Three years later he graduated from law school and started his activities in leftist political parties.
On March 1955 he was jailed and tortured. Two things kept him alive while he was prisoned; his mother and his close friend Morteza Keyvan who was executed. Shahrokh Meskoob was released on May 1957. From 1959 until the 1979 Iranian revolution, he worked for different government sectors.
After the revolution, he moved to Europe and spent most of his time in France. He died in 2005 in Paris.
Works
Shahrokh Meskoob (Ph.D.) is the first Iranian scholar who worked on Ferdowsi's Shahnameh on the basis of the principles of modern literary criticism. Among his most famous books is Soog-e Siavash, which is based on Siavash character of Shahnameh.
His major published works include translations of Sophocles' Antigone, Oedipus Rex, and Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath; he has also written Moqaddame-'i bar Rostam va Esfandiar (a study of the ethics of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh); Soug-e Siavosh (a study of the myth of martyrdom and resurrection in the Shahnameh); and Dar kuy-e dust (an interpretive study of Hafez's views on man, nature, love, and ethics).
Selected works
- Moqaddame-'i bar Rostam va Esfandiar (An Introduction to Rostam and Esfandiar), 1963
- Soog-e Siavash (Siavash's Mourning), 1971
- Dar kuy-e doost (At a Friend's), 1978
- Meliyat va zaban (Iranian Nationality and the Persian Language, tr. into English by Michael C. Hillmann), 1992
- Ketab-e Morteza Keyvan (Book of Morteza Keyvan), 2003
- Soog-e Madar (Mother's Mourning), 2007
Selected translations
- Khooshehaye khashm (Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath), 1949
- Antigen (Sophocles' Antigone), 1956
- Adibe Shahryar (Sophocles' Oedipus Rex), 1961
- Promethe dar zanjir (Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound), 1963
- Oedipus dar colnous (Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus), 1967
- Afsneyahe Tabaye (Sophocles, The Theban plays), 1973