The History of Children's Literature in Iran

However, many passages can be found in the general literary works that are written for children and are clearly addressed to the young reader.

The turning point occurs in the late 19th century and early 20th century, when such new factors enter the scene: new educational concepts, continuity of oral literature and folklore, development of a more simple Persian prose, the advent of translations from the West, the start of the printing industry in Iran, establishment of new schools, the study of child psychology, and the rise of pioneer personalities as early publishers of books for children.

As an extensive research project, the HCLI will also review the children’s literature of Iran’s minorities such as the Azaris, the Kurds, Zoroastrians, Christians and Jews.

Children’s Literature in Iran is a thin branch of the immense and aged tree of Iranian arts and culture.

For example, it was much easier to understand the emergence of courtesy literature written for princes when we learned about the educational philosophy of that period.

We had to look over all bibliographies, biographies, and newspapers and magazines, which were published during a specific era to find and prepare a list of children’s books from that time.

In finding every unique document, we have searched many secondhand bookstores in Tehran and other cities in addition to all public and private libraries.

We found that the children’s oral literature was a rich treasure preserved by each of the dozens of the Iran’s ethnic groups.

Because Iran is an ancient land with diverse and dispersed ethnic groups, we have extended our research beyond children’s written literature in Persian.