The first Villette translated in Persian (or Farsi; as far as I could gather) was published in 1992 by Insight (474 pp.). The translation was done by Farida Timurid. She also translated Shirley. The second edition was published in 1993. The covers couldn’t be found unfortunately.
The third, fourth and fifth editions were published in 2011, 2012 (probably) and 2013 respectively, by Secretary Press (486 pp.). They have the same cover. Only the year of the fourth has been given, 1390, which corresponds with March 2011 to March 2012. The third edition is from January 2011, the fifth from March 2013, so it seems fair to assume the fourth will be from about halfway between.
 |
| Cover of the 2011, 2012 and 2013 Iranian Villette |
These five editions were only discovered recently. It means that the total number of translated editions of Villette increases to 224, and the total number for Villette and The Professor together to 395. It seems well possible that we’ll get to 400 in the spring. It also means that the first Persian Villette (as far as I know now) was published 21 years earlier than I previously thought.
The second translation was published in 2014, just. Its precise publication date is given as the 15th of the 10th (moon) month of the year 1392, which is 5 January 2014. Earlier, in the list of all translated editions, the book was erroneously given as from 2013. This Villette was published by Reed and translated by Reza Rezaee (711 pp.). He has done more Brontë novels, as well as all Jane Austen and a few George Eliot novels.
 |
| Cover of the 2014 Iranian Villette |
There are two versions of this edition. The other one has a brownish color. At the same time this translation also appeared as an audiobook.
 |
| Cover of the 2014 Iranian Villette audiobook |
A third translation, by Marzieh Khosravi, was published in Teheran in (April) 2015 (672 pp.), the publisher’s name translates as Day or Days. She has translated many works, also from French and other languages, including Thomas de Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Again the title reflects the sound of Villette - Google translate gives it as ‘Willett.’
 |
| Cover of the 2015 Iranian Villette |
The Professor
The first Persian translation of The Professor was published in 2013 by Jami (344 pp.). It was translated by Esmaeil Kayvani.
 |
| Cover of the 2013 Iranian The Professor |
The second translation was published on the same date as the first Villette, 5 January 2014. This was also a translation by Reza Rezaee and published by Reed (343 pp.). This edition has previously been attributed to 2015 in the list of all translated editions, which each time gets outdated soon.
 |
| Cover of the 2014 Iranian The Professor |
The third translation, by J. Violet, was published in 2015 by Day (364 pp.).
 |
| Cover of the 2015 Iranian The Professor (Sherlock Holmes movie costume (2011)) |
The other Brontë novels
Apart from Villette and The Professor Reza Rezaee has also translated Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Shirley, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Marzieh Khosrain has, apart from Villette, also translated Shirley. Jane Eyre has had at least six different translations, Wuthering Heights at least five. The amount of translations is quite impressive.
All this means that 2013 has lost and gained a translated edition, 2015 lost one, and 2011, 2012 and 2014 gained one. The new scores for the top three years are 20 for 2013 (9 V + 11 TP), 17 (6 + 11) for 2014 and 15 (5 + 10) for 2016. The year 2011 is now on second place for Villette with 8 editions.
Eric Ruijssenaars
P.S. As always we would love to hear from people from the countries described in this series, about personal recollections of the translated editions, and additions, even more so now the languages are getting difficult. It would be very interesting to learn more about the popularity of the Brontës in Iran, and all the other countries.
So do leave a comment or write to me, ericruijssenaars@hotmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment