7. Scholarly Ventures

This chapter addresses Hedayat’s scholarly writing and his pioneering research on folklore and oral culture, as well as their implications for his reception. This is a fascinating part of Hedayat’s literary career because understanding the logic of his lifelong interest in folklore in particular, elaborated on in introductory notes, is essential for forming a more comprehensive image of him as a modern author and further clarifies his relationship with (European) modernity. In fact, there is a clear link between his research on folklore, his translation interests, and his fictional writing, which cannot be, as it is often thought, solely explained through nationalist interests. In folklore, he found the echoes of an ancient pre-national humanity, as opposed to the modernity he critiqued, and the possibility of expanding one’s imagination. Neglected until then in scholarship, folklore’s universality created continuity in human history and brought it close to an idea of world literature—what he found inspiring for contemporary society.