The First Signs of Novel Writing in Iran: An Analysis on Hekayat-e Pir va Javan by Naser al-Din Shah

The Story of the Old and the Young Man, “Hekayat-e Pir va Javan”, is the only story written by Qajarid Naser al-Din Shah. The work, scribed by Mirza Abd al-Karim Monshi Tehrani, is a valuable heritage, since not only it is considered as a literary work pertaining to the Qajar period, but also the first or at least one of the first Persian story works that clearly gets away from the ancient style of writing stories and approaches more closely to the novel style in its Western modern sense. Discussing the most important characteristics of the work, the present paper deals with the ones depicting its distance from the ancient style and approaches to the modern style of writing novels in its western sense.