TEHRAN -- Miguel de Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” was reviewed during a session held by Tehran’s Art Bureau on September 2 at the Bureau’s venue.

Kiumars Monshizadeh, writer and poet, pointed out that Cervantes’ novel “Don Quixote” has been reprinted many times world-wide and the book has had the largest global circulation after the Bible.
He went on to analyze the characters in “Don Quixote”, commenting on the contrast between the characters of the phlegmatic Sancho Panza and the melancholic protagonist Alonso Quixano.
Monshizadeh went on to explain how Cervantes has produced a dilemma in the novel -- the character of Sancho Panza views the realities of life, whereas Quixano sees the world in his own way, and the reader is left in doubt as to which of them is right.
He commented that although “Don Quixote” makes the reader laugh, the humor is sarcastic. The book juxtaposes happiness and sadness and the readers are exposed to the perpetual contrast of reality and desire throughout the whole story.
He praised the Persian version of “Don Quixote” by the late Mohammad Qazi, the veteran Iranian translator, saying that although it is not a word by word translation, the setting and atmosphere of the story is communicated in the best possible way.
Often called the first modern novel, Don Quixote was originally conceived as a satirical criticism of chivalric romances. It gives a panoramic view of 17th-century Spanish society