Sâdeq Hedâyat (1903-51) is a towering figure in modern Persian prose literature. Despite the passage of time, Hedâyat's best works still have a vivacity of expression that makes them as fascinating and intriguing as they must have been in the 1930s and 1940s when they were written. Among those works that spring to mind in particular as retaining a fresh fascination are, apart from the novel Buf-e kur, short stories like “Zendeh be-gur,” “Hâjji Morâd,” “Dâvud-e guzh-posht,” “Âbji khânom,” “Dâsh Âkol,” “Âyneh-ye shekasteh,” “Zani keh mardesh-râ gom kardeh bud,” “Sag-e velgard,” “Don Zhu’ân-e Karaj,” “Fardâ,” and a few others. The attraction of these short stories stems from, I think, the way in which Hedâyat, like an illustrator, with only a few strokes of his pen succeeds in producing a convincing and life-like portrait of a person, a situation, or a milieu. In addition to this, Hedâyat's prose is innovative and his narratives are for the most part well-constructed, at times almost cinematic in their presentation.

What has been said above is restricted to literary form and technique. Mahmud Dowlat-Âbâdi, coming from a different angle, has asserted that “we [the Persian writers] all have come out of Hedâyat's ‘Darkroom’.” This is both an acknowledgment of Hedâyat's influence on literary posterity and a reference to the short story “Târikkhâneh” (“Darkroom,” from the collection Sag-e velgard, 1942). “Târik-khâneh” is not one of those short stories that lives on in the reader's memory – it is more of a philosophical discussion clad in literary clothes than a piece of genuine literature – but in spite of its lack of literary qualities there is a reason why Dowlat-Âbâdi refers to this particular short story, beyond the play on words. The main theme of “Târik-khâneh” is a contrasting of two, as Hedâyat sees it, main aspects of human life. On the one hand, there is “primitive” life, which is characterized by movement and haste, noise, obsession with material things, and shallowness – but all the same, here one can be and feel alive.