November 29 2013
“The House of the Seven Gables,” the Gothic novel written in 1851 by American Nathaniel Hawthorne, has been translated into Farsi and published in Iran.
Hawthorne explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement in a New England family and colors the tale with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft, not themes normally appealing to censors in the Islamic Republic.
The novel is set in the mid-19th Century, although it includes glimpses into the history of the house, which was built in the late 17th Century. The primary attraction of the book has been its subtle and involved descriptions of character and motive.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 and died in 1864, during the US Civil War.
Some of his other novels—including “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” “The Scarlet Letter” and “Young Goodman Brown”—have been translated into Persian and released in Iran previously.
