Mehdi Akhavan-Sales

Mehdi Akhavan-Sales, writing under the pen name M. Omid, was born in Mashhad and worked as a teacher and radio producer before being imprisoned following the CIA-backed 1953 coup d'état against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

Akhavan-Sales bridged classical Ferdowsi-style epic diction with Nimaic modernism. His legendary 1956 collection Zemestan (Winter), with its haunting opening line 'They do not return your greeting; their heads are sunken into their collars', became the immortal cultural symbol of post-coup despair and political winter in modern Iranian history. He was buried beside Ferdowsi in Tus.