TEHRAN (IBNA) -- Persian translation of ‘The Day of the Locust’ (1939), a novel by American author ‎and screenwriter Nathanael West which is a sharp criticism of Hollywood values and ‎extravaganza has been published. ‎
The novel has been translated into Persian by Farid Dabir-Moghadam. Tehran-based Mahi Publishing has released ‘The Day of the Locust’ in 208 pages.
The book is about the corrupting touch of Hollywood, about the American dream turned into a sun-drenched California nightmare.
Nathanael West’s Hollywood is not the glamorous “home of the stars” but a seedy world of little people, some hopeful, some despairing, all twisted by their own desires- from the ironically romantic artist narrator, to a macho movie cowboy, a middle-aged innocent from America’s heartland, and the hard-as-nails girl would-be-star whom they all lust after.
An unforgettable portrayal of a world that mocks the real and rewards the sham, turns its back on love to plunge into empty sex, and breeds a savage violence that is its own undoing, this novel stands as a classic indictment of all that is most extravagant and uncontrolled in American life.
Nathanael West is remembered for two darkly satirical novels: ‘Miss Lonelyhearts’ (1933) and ‘The Day of the Locust’ (1939), set respectively in the newspaper and Hollywood film industries.
West saw the American dream as having been betrayed, both spiritually and materially, and in his writing he presented “a sweeping rejection of political causes, religious faith, artistic redemption and romantic love”.
This idea of the corrupt American dream endured long after his death, in the form of the term “West’s disease”, coined by the poet W. H. Auden to refer to poverty that exists in both a spiritual and economic sense.