Reflection of Absurdist Effects on the Works by Sadeq Hedayat

Under the influence of nihilistic thoughts created as a result of philosophical, scientific, historical and social developments in the modern era, a style called Absurd Literature emerged which emphasizes the lack of logic in the nature and man’s solitude in a meaningless world and expresses thoughts such as aimlessness, nihilism, faithlessness, lack of identity, loneliness, etc. in the life of modern man. This movement emerged in Iran’s literature at the same time as the West in two periods of time. The first one was the period of the hegemony of Reza Shah, during which desperation prevailed in the society and the second period is related to the 1953 Iranian coup d’état and failure of the movement of nationalization of the oil industry, which disappointed the intellectuals and provided the grounds for their inclination towards the absurd literature. The attacks by foreign forces, colonization, hegemony, chaos, insecurity and political, social and economic crises had a great effect on the morale of Iranian writers and led to the emergence of nihilistic and absurdist thoughts among them. Sadeq Hedayat, Sadeq Choobak and Bahram Sadeqi are among the writers in the 1950’s and 60’s whose works are filled with the signs of nihilistic thoughts. This paper attempts to study the reflection of absurdist effects on the works by Sadeq Hedayat with emphasis on his three main works.