TEHRAN -- Prominent Iranian linguist, translator and literary critic Mohammad-Ali Haqshenas died at Tehran’s Payambaran Hospital on Friday. He was 70.

He was hospitalized at Tehran’s Arad Hospital and on Friday morning he was transferred to Payambran Hospital due to his critical condition. He was suffering from an illness which was not disclosed by sources.
He was well known for his groundbreaking English-Persian millennium dictionary which was compiled according to new linguistic methods.
Due to his oral testimony, he will be buried in northern Iranian countryside of Kelardasht, where he had a country residence in which he spent his free time, his only child Aisling told news agencies.
Born in 1940 in Jahrom in Fars Province, he got his diploma in literature in Shiraz. After getting his B.A. in Persian Language and Literature at Tehran’s Teacher Training College, he left Iran for higher education at the University of London in linguistics.
He was among the founders of Iran’s Literary Criticism Association and was a member of its board of directors as well. He was announced as one of Iranian Linguistics’ Eternal Figures in 2006.
He carried out numerous translations in the field of literature including “Novelist on the Novel” by Miriam Allott and also penned many literary criticisms on contemporary works and novels.
“The funeral procession will begin on Monday in front of the Payambaran Hospital and he will be laid to rest in Kelardasht’s Banafsheh-Deh graveyard in the afternoon,” his wife Jaclyn Haqshenas told ISNA.