TEHRAN – The Persian translation of the novella “The Colonel Does Not Sleep” written by the French author Emilienne Malfatto has been released in the Iranian book market.

Translated by Abolfazl Allahdadi, the book has been brought out by Ofoq Publication, Mehr reported.

Originally published in 2022, “The Colonel Does Not Sleep” is Malfatto’s second book, a vertiginous story about war and what it does to men. It has been translated into several languages.

In an anonymous basement in a big city of a country at war, day after day, the colonel toils away at his drudgery. He is an expert torturer, content to hide and obey orders from the Counter Conquest and from distant battles.

At night, the colonel does not sleep, plagued by his own ghosts. An army of shadows and voices, his victims have taken his dreams hostage. The rain outside is incessant. The landscape and faces have turned to ash—a sort of waking nightmare painted in the grey hues of disillusionment. Shadows dance and three men on the road to perdition answer: the tortured torturer, the henchmen silently lie in wait, and, in a huge palace, in the middle of a large, empty room, a general slowly turns mad.

A cruel fable about mental illness, war, and men. A powerfully written tour de force, it is elliptical, syncopated, repetitive, and melodic; it builds in a disturbing crescendo. Its treatment of the threat of war that never becomes reality, of invisible enemies, and the vacuousness of orders is reminiscent of Buzzati’s “The Tartar Steppe” and of Hubert Mingarelli’s “Four Soldiers”.

Emilienne Malfatto, 36, is an award-winning photographer, journalist, and writer. Through intimate stories, her work revolves around social, feminist, and post-conflict issues in the West Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Her photos have been featured in publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Le Monde and exhibited internationally. 

Her novel “May the Tigris Grieve for You” (2020), which won the 2021 Prix Goncourt for a debut, is about a family tragedy in Southern Iraq. Her non-fiction book “The Serpents Will Come for You” (2021) about the murder of social leaders in Colombia, won the Albert Londres book prize. 

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