Zabihollah Mansouri: Between Translation and Imagination
Zabihollah Hakim-olahi Dashti, known as Zabihollah Mansouri (1900–1986), was one of the most prolific translators, journalists, and writers in the history of modern Iran.
A complex and controversial figure, he devoted over sixty years of his life to writing and translation — blurring the boundary between translator and author in a way that continues to provoke both admiration and criticism decades after his death.
Early Life and Education
Zabihollah Mansouri was born in 1900 in Sanandaj, in western Iran.
His father, Esmaeil (known as Entekhab-od-Dowleh), was a government employee, and his mother came from a respected clerical family in Gilan.
He studied at the Alliance Française School in Sanandaj, established by the French to promote their language and culture, and later, after the family moved to Kermanshah, he learned French under the guidance of a local physician fluent in the language.
When the family returned to Tehran, his father died suddenly, forcing Mansouri to abandon his education to support his mother and younger siblings.
In 1922, when the newspaper Koushesh was founded, he joined its staff as a translator of short stories, scientific essays, and news features — a turning point that launched his long career in journalism and translation.
Over the following decades, he collaborated with numerous major publications, including Ettela’at, Kayhan, Iran-e Ma, Dad, Bakhtar, Khandaniha, Roshanafekr, Tehran Mosavvar, Sepid-o-Siah, Omid-e Iran, Post-e Tehran, and later Danestaniha.
It is said that throughout his lifetime he wrote or translated more than 1,200 titles.
He travelled widely — to India, the Soviet Union, and several European countries — and continued to write until his final days in Tehran.
Mansouri passed away on June 9, 1986, at the age of 87, and was buried in Section 596 of Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran.
His Translation Philosophy: Expansion Over Fidelity
Mansouri never saw translation as a purely linguistic act.
He followed what he himself called a “philosophy of expansionism in translation”, or what later critics dubbed the School of Elaboration.
In his view, translation took two forms:
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Literal translation, in which the translator mechanically renders each word;
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Adaptive or expansive translation, where the translator may extend the author’s idea, reframe it, and even enrich it with his own commentary.
Mansouri firmly embraced the second.
He simplified complex prose, inserted explanations and digressions, and at times expanded short works into multi-volume sagas.
He frequently mixed his own imagination and opinions into the text, so much so that the boundary between author and translator became indistinguishable.
On several occasions, he even invented fictitious authors, attributing his own writings to imaginary French names such as Paul Amir — a figure who never existed.
Thus, Mansouri was not a conventional translator but rather a creative storyteller in the guise of a translator.
In his Persian rendition of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, he openly admitted in the preface that a faithful translation would be incomprehensible to Persian readers: “If I were to translate it word for word, the Persian reader would not understand a single page.”
Similarly, his version of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, originally about 600 pages, swelled to more than 6,000 pages across ten volumes.
A Modern Naqqal: Reviving the Persian Oral Tradition
Critics such as Amir Ahmadi Arian (in The Yale Review) have compared Mansouri’s approach to the ancient Iranian art of Naqali — the dramatic oral storytelling tradition through which Shahnameh epics were performed in coffeehouses.
Like the naqqals of old, Mansouri adapted foreign works into vivid Persian prose for the masses, embellishing them with action, suspense, and moral reflection.
He rose to fame just as the last generation of traditional storytellers was fading away and, perhaps unknowingly, kept their spirit alive by applying their narrative techniques to Western literature.
He wanted everyone — including those with little formal education — to access the worlds of philosophy, history, and science through language they could understand.
In this way, he became a bridge between Iran’s oral tradition and the modern printed word, turning the experience of reading into something akin to listening to an old storyteller recounting tales of love, war, and destiny.
Controversies and Criticism
Mansouri’s creative liberties sparked heated debates.
The celebrated critic Reza Baraheni wrote in Alchemy and Dust that “Mr. Mansouri belongs to the school of expansion — a six-hundred-page novel becomes at least a thousand pages in his hands.”
Others, such as Karim Emami, while critical of his mistranslations, still acknowledged his literary power:
“Forget Zabihollah Mansouri the translator; instead, take off your hat to Zabihollah Mansouri the writer.”
In 2007, journalist Ali-Akbar Ghazizadeh proposed a scholarly reevaluation of Mansouri’s work in Shargh newspaper, urging that his oeuvre be classified into four groups:
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Authentic translations of known authors such as Maurice Maeterlinck, Alexandre Dumas, Agatha Christie, and Cervantes;
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Expansive adaptations, in which he enlarged short works into full-length novels;
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Fictional attributions, works falsely credited to non-existent foreign writers;
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Philosophical and religious texts, which should be viewed merely as Mansouri’s personal interpretations rather than reliable sources.
Cultural Impact
Despite his lack of fidelity to source texts, Mansouri’s cultural influence is undeniable.
He introduced millions of Iranians — many of whom had little exposure to books — to the habit of reading.
His lively and accessible prose opened the door to literature, science, and world history at a time when the country’s literacy rate was low.
Through his works, readers travelled to ancient Persia, European courts, battlefields, and the spiritual realms of Islamic mysticism.
He helped democratize reading in Iran, transforming translation into an act of mass storytelling.
Notable Works
Among hundreds of titles published under his name, the most famous include:
The Egyptian Doctor Sinuhe (Mika Waltari),
Lord of Alamut (Hasan Sabbah),
The Crowned Vizier (Khajeh Tajdar),
The Eternal Land (Roman Ghirshman),
Imam Hussein and Iran (Kurt Frischler),
The Intellectual Mind of Shia Islam (Imam Sadegh),
Avicenna: A Genius from the East,
and I Am Timur the Conqueror.
Legacy
Zabihollah Mansouri remains a cultural phenomenon rather than merely a translator.
He blurred the lines between translation, adaptation, and authorship — and in doing so, revived an ancient Iranian narrative spirit within the modern press.
Though scholars may dispute the authenticity of his works, few can deny his achievement:
he made reading a national pastime for generations who might otherwise never have opened a book.
As one critic aptly said:
“Zabihollah Mansouri may not have been Iran’s greatest translator, but he was surely one of its greatest cultural mediators — a storyteller who carried worlds across languages.”
