by Muhammad Ali Jamalzadah

Muhammad Ali Jamalzadah (also spelled Jamalzadeh) was born January 13, 1892, in Isfahan, Iran, to a progressive father who was a Muslim clergyman. A talented orator, the father, Sayyid Jamal al-Din Isfahani, denounced corrupt religious practices and lambasted the injustices of rule under the Qajar dynasty (1779-1925). He was consequently poisoned to death in 1908. His son soon left Iran, ending up in Beirut, Lebanon, where he attended the Antoura Catholic secondary school. Jamalzadah went on to earn a law degree from the University of Dijon in France, returning briefly to Iran before settling in Berlin, Germany, in 1916. There he supervised Iranian students for the Iranian embassy and wrote for Kavah, a Persian newspaper opposed to foreign intervention, which had long plagued Iran. At the beginning of 1921, Kavah published Jamalzadah’s short story “Persian Is Sugar,” and later that year added...