I should have written about this book earlier. The news, however, comes only now, with a delay caused not by literature but by history: war severed connections and separated the family that had spent years working on this unusual edition.
This is the second Iranian edition of Milorad Pavić’s “Dictionary of the Khazars” — and, most importantly, an uncensored edition.
“Dictionary of the Khazars” had already been published in Iran. The new edition, published by the Tehran publishing house Noghreh, has an entirely different history.
It all began in 2021, when literary translator Youltan Sadykova contacted me from Tehran. This was the beginning of a long and unusually warm correspondence with her and the Aslani-Fazaeli family, who are behind the Noghreh publishing house.
Books in Iran are subject to very strict censorship, but the publishers succeeded in obtaining permission from the relevant religious authorities to publish “Dictionary of the Khazars” uncensored. For this reason alone, this edition occupies a special place among the many translations of Pavić’s novel.
I also wrote a special text about Milorad Pavić and “Dictionary of the Khazars” for this edition. Youltan translated it into Persian, and the publishers included it in the book as a letter from me — a kind of manuscript, printed on a separate sheet designed like an unfurling papyrus scroll.
And then the war came.
Youltan and her husband Amin, together with his parents, the founders of the Noghreh publishing house, had been planning to move to France. Amin’s parents received their visas, while Youltan and Amin were still waiting for a response from the embassy when the war began. Youltan, who had taken part in protests in Iran and, as a Russian citizen, also feared for her own safety, temporarily returned to Russia to stay with her family. Amin and his parents remained in Iran.
And so the family that created this edition of “Dictionary of the Khazars” found itself separated.
That is why I am only now publishing the news about the book.
The video accompanying this news was filmed by Amin shortly after the book was published. His is the voice we hear; the hands opening the book and unfurling my text belong to Youltan.
At that time, the two of them were still together.
The book remained.
