New fantastic tale in Persian children's literature, Fantasy stories trend in Iran, Between 1990 and 2007

Abstract

The new fantastic tale in Persian children’s literature from 1990 to 2007 comprises an introduction, a chapter dealing with theory and dealing with the history of the genre, an analysis of five books and finally a section detailing conclusions. The principal contention of the essay is that the new Persian fantastic tales for children can be seen as a genre with its roots in a broad tradition and folklore of fantastic tales for more of 1000 years ago and some of this element is same between other people and other countries. In order to examine and define this genre the essay takes as its base a number of theoretical works about fantastic literature and fantastic tales for adults and children. In the stories under examination one can detect a development of specific motifs, such as the strange or the chosen child, the journey, the metamorphosis and the secondary world. There are references to recurrent themes of identity, sickness, sorrow, death, evil and love. The five studies are taken chronologically to characterise Persian fantastic tales for children that have been written and/or published for children in Iran from 1990 to 2007.