Khayyam's Melodies, Kafka's Message, and Hidayat's Epilogue: The Kafkaesque Legacy in Persian Literature

This article examines the reception of Kafka in modern Persian literature..adiq Hidayat's Kafka's Message ( Payam-i Kafka 1948) is the catalyst of this reception as one of the first critical Persian texts to discuss a European writer and the first sustained, critical text on Kafka in any Islamic cultural context. Hidayat's efforts in repackaging Kafka as a Manichean, downplaying Kafka's Jewish ethnicity and religion, are placed in dialogue with past, present, and future critical readings of Kafka in academic circles. By shedding light on Hidayat's introduction to Khayyam's Melodies (Taranaha-yi Khayyam 1934) and Kafka's Message, this article moves beyond previous scholarship, which focuses exclusively on Hidayat as a surrealist novelist and short story writer, to draw attention to his contributions to Persian literary criticism. It shows how Hidayat perceived and articulated a critical humanism in a tradition which he traces from `Umar Khayyam, through Kafka, to his own literary enterprise. An appendix offers an original English translation of the opening pages of Kafka's Message.