Association des écrivains de langue française (ADELF) Prix 1991 Chevalier of the
Order of Academic Palms 2011
Ahmad Kamyabi Mask (
Persian: احمد کامیابی مَسْک; born 1944) is a writer, translator, publisher, and current Professor Emeritus of Modern Drama and Theater of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the
University of Tehran.[1] He is a prominent scholar of French Avant-garde theater and influential in the study of
Eugène Ionesco and
Samuel Beckett.
Biography
Ahmad Kamyabi Mask was born in
Khusf, a village in the vicinity of
Birjand in the east of
Iran, in 1944 during the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran. He attended university in
Mashhad,
Tehran and
Montpellier and taught as a school teacher. Having earned a doctorate de 3e cycle from
Paul Valéry University, Montpellier III, he started as a university professor in 1978 in Tehran. He earned his doctorate d'État (state doctorate) in
Comparative Literature and Theatrical Studies in 1999 and is "Professor of Humanities" since then.[2]
Kamyabi Mask authored and translated numerous books and essays in
French and
Persian and self-published them in
Paris[3] and with other publishing houses and back in Iran with various publishers, notable among them the
University of Tehran Press.[4] Some of his
oeuvre has been translated and published to Anglophone readership; one being his book of interviews with Beckett, Last Meeting with Samuel Beckett translated by Janet A. Evans.[5] This book has been translated into numerous other languages as well.
He is also a prolific translator between French and Persian. He translated into Persian many of Eugène Ionesco's plays, who wrote a preface to Kamyabi Mask's Qu'a-t-on fait de Rhinocéros d'Eugène Ionesco à travers le monde?: Allemagne, France, Roumanie, Iran, Japon, U.S.A.[6] and Ionesco et son théâtre.[7] He also translated plays by
Jean Genet and
Fernando Arrabal and introduced them to Persian readership. He also translated notable Eastern and Persian works into French: a play by
Bahram Bayzai, Le huitième voyage de Sindbad[8] along with works of poetry by
Buddha,[9]Ahmad Shamlou[10] and Shokouh Mirzadagui.[11]
Kamyabi Mask received the 1991 award of the Association of French Language Writers for his book Qui sont les rhinocéros de Monsieur Bérenger-Eugène Ionesco?. In 2011, he was named Chevalier of the
Order of Academic Palms for distinguished contribution to French literature and culture.[12]
Ahmad Kamyabi Mask is an eminent critic of
Martin Esslin for the colonialist quality of the latter's critique on French Avant-garde theater.[13][14][15][16]
Works
Some of Kamyabi Mask's books are:
Kamyabi Mask, Ahmad (1987).
Ionesco et son théâtre. Préface d'Eugène Ionesco suivie d'un entretien avec Ionesco. Paris: Caractères – Deuxième édition, 1992, Ed. A. Kamyabi Mask, Paris.
ISBN9782950480637.
Contemporary Persian and Classical Persian are the same language, but writers since 1900 are classified as contemporary. At one time, Persian was a common cultural language of much of the non-Arabic Islamic world. Today it is the official language of
Iran,
Tajikistan and one of the two official languages of
Afghanistan.