TEHRAN: Hundreds of Iranians attended the funeral of Iran’s most famous contemporary poet Hushan Ebtehaj on Friday. He died earlier this month at the age of 94. Ebtehaj, whose Persian pseudonym was Sayeh (Shadow), became famous for his compositions. A lyric poem on the theme of love and loneliness, and a reflection on the hardships and upturns of life in Iran. He died of kidney failure in Germany and his remains were transferred to his home country ahead of Friday’s service.
He was a founding member of the Iranian Writers Association (IWA) established in 1968. Long close to his Tudeh, Iran’s Communist Party, he resigned from state radio after his 1978 massacre by the then-Sultan’s security forces. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ebtehai was arrested along with several members of Today and the party was banned. Starting in the late 1980s, he moved back and forth between Tehran and Cologne, where he lived a modest life with his family.
After a short ceremony, attendees followed his coffin while a recording of him reciting one of his poems was broadcast. “Sayye has finally returned to his land,” Ebtehai’s daughter Yalda told the crowd, saying her father “kept repeating that he wanted to return to his people.” Iranian President Ebrahim Raishi said In a message, he praised the poet “for his role in the rich treasures of Persian literature” and for “anti-arrogance” poems that refer to the United States in Iranian government terms. Will be buried in. – AFP
