TEHRAN – “The Dying Night” and “The Singing Bell” by the Russian-born American writer Isaac Asimov have been published in Persian.

Qoqnus released the short stories in a single book. Mina Lezgi is the translator of the stories.

“The Dying Night” is a science fiction story. Three astronomers, who have been working on the Moon, Mercury and the asteroid Ceres, meet for the first time in ten years at a convention on Earth. 

They also meet a former colleague of theirs, Romero Villiers, who had to stay on Earth because of illness. Villiers claims to have invented a mass-transference/teleportation device, but dies under suspicious circumstances before he can demonstrate the device to his friends.

The story first appeared in the July 1956 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and was reprinted in the collections Nine Tomorrows (1959), Asimov’s Mysteries (1968), and The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973). “The Dying Night” is Asimov’s third Wendell Urth story.

“The Singing Bell” is also a science fiction mystery short story, which was first published in the January 1955 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and was reprinted in the 1968 collection Asimov’s Mysteries. It was the first of Asimov's Wendell Urth stories.

Asimov was a long-time member and vice president of Mensa International, albeit reluctantly; he described some members of that organization as “brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs”. 

He took more joy in being president of the American Humanist Association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov’s Science Fiction, a Brooklyn, NY elementary school, and two different Isaac Asimov Awards are named in his honor.

Photo: Front cover of the book comprising Isaac Asimov’s short fiction stories “The Dying Night” and “The Singing Bell”.

MMS/YAW