Financial Tribune- A new edition of the German translation of ‘Kelidar,’ written by the celebrated Iranian writer Mahmoud Dowlatabadi in Persian and translated by the late German-Iranian translator Sigrid Lotfi, has been released in Germany.

The abridged German version is in 400 pages while the original Persian work has 10 volumes with 3,000 pages in all, Honaronline reported.

Dowlatabadi’s monumental work is considered to be the longest Persian novel written to date. It is about a Kurdish nomadic family.

The story, narrated in lyrical language, is set against the highly charged political climate in Iran after World War II, between 1946 and 1949. Kelidar is the name of a mountain and a village in Sabzevar, Khorasan Razavi Province, where the events of the novel take place.

The author spent 15 years (1977-1984) writing the novel. It has been translated into different languages.

Dowlatabadi, 76, is a master in combining rural speech with the lyrical features of Persian poetry. He is particularly gifted in portraying the social and ethical problems of the poor, especially in rural Iran where he grew up.

Sigrid (1921-2013) was a translator of Persian literature into German language. She married Mohammad Hassan Lotfi (PhD), Iranian scholar and translator of books on philosophy in Germany, and then settled in Iran. Her husband studied law at the University of Gottingen and was the translator of Plato’s works into Persian.

Besdies ‘Kelidar’, Sigrid has translated ‘Missing Soluch’ another novel by Dowlatabadi which was published by Union Publication in Zurich in 1991. She also translated the famous novel ‘The Neighbors’ by Ahmad Mahmoud and stories by Sadeq Hedayat, Simin Daneshvar and Zouya Pirzad.