Gholamhoseyn Sa'edi, Othello in Wonderland

Shauna O'Brien (Trinity College Dublin)

Ed. by William M. Hamlin, Washington State University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 7.1.1: Iranian/ Persian Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Laetitia Nanquette (University of New South Wales)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1985

Places

Iran (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

Othello in Wonderland is one of the last plays written by the Iranian playwright, novelist and screenwriter Gholamhoseyn Sa’edi before his death in 1985. Written in Farsi during Sa’edi’s exile in France and first staged in Paris in 1985, the play presents the story of an amateur theatre troupe as they attempt to stage Shakespeare’s Othello in Iran of the early 1980s under the scrutiny of the state censor.

The troupe’s endeavour to produce Othello acts as a case study that illustrates and interrogates the methods of theatrical censorship in post-revolutionary Iran. Sa’edi uses Shakespeare’s status as a figure of “enlightened humanism” to counterpoint the conservative ideology of the state …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1226 words

Citation: O'Brien, Shauna. "Othello in Wonderland". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 November 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35254, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Save this article