TEHRAN – English author and journalist George Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism” has recently been published in Persian.

Ebrahim Mahjubi has rendered the book into Persian from a German translation published in January 2020. Shahre Honar is the publisher of the Persian translation, which carries a preface by Ramin Nasehi, a Germany-based Iranian sociologist.  

“Notes on Nationalism” is an essay completed in May 1945 by Orwell and published in the first issue of the British magazine Polemic in October 1945.

Orwell discusses nationalism and argues that it causes people to disregard commonsense and to become more ignorant towards facts. Orwell shows his concern for the social state of Europe and the rest of the world because of the increasing influence of nationalistic sentiment in a large number of countries.

The essay was soon translated into French and Dutch, Italian and Finnish, in which the word nationalism was represented by chauvinism.

The article was abridged in the translated versions by omitting details of particular relevance to British readers. A short introduction, based on material supplied by Orwell, preceded the translated abridgements.

Orwell’s work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.

He is best known for the dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, published in 1949, and the satirical novella “Animal Farm” that came out in 1945. They have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.

Photo: A combination photo shows the front covers of the English and Persian versions of George Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism”.

MMS/YAW