Sa'edi was born in
Tabriz, Iran, the cultural and economic center of the northwestern Iranian region of
Azerbaijan, to Tayyebe and Ali Asghar Sa'edi. His father, who belonged to the Sa'ed ol-Mamalek clan, worked as a government administrator. The family lived in relative poverty. His older sister died when she was eleven months old, but he grew up with a younger brother and sister. In 1941, after the
Soviet Union invaded Tabriz in the
Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, he and his family fled to a village. There, Sa'edi became fascinated with the culture of rural Iran. As a boy he was an avid reader fascinated particularly by writings of
Anton Chekhov. It was in those days, he wrote many years later, that his "eyes suddenly opened." In 1945, his native province became an
autonomous socialist republic. Although the separatist state lasted only a year, it temporarily instated
Azerbaijani as the
official language in addition to inspiring the young Sa'edi. In 1949, he joined the youth organization of the outlawed separatist party, the
Azerbaijani Democratic Party. In addition to instigating villagers against large land owners, he helped edit three magazines:
Faryad,
So’ud, and
Javanan-e Azarbayjan. In 1953, after
Operation Ajax, the
CIA coup d'état against the democratically elected Prime Minister
Mohammad Mosaddeq, he and his younger brother were arrested and imprisoned at Shahrbani Prison in Tabriz. Although he renounced his allegiances to the communist
Tudeh Party of Iran, he continued his socio-politically critical literary career. Although Sa'edi started writing in his boyhood, he started publishing his first short stories in the early 1950s. He published more stories through the course of the decade and his first play, ''Leylaj'ha
, in 1957, albeit under the female pen name, Gohar Morad (also spelled Gowhar Murad). After moving to Tehran in the early 1960s, where he and his brother, Akbar, founded a medical clinic in the impoverished south of the city, he became acquainted with the literary intelligentsia of Iran. In addition to living with Ahmad Shamlou, a renowned lyric poet, he befriended Jalal Al-e Ahmad, author of Gharbzadegi'' ("Weststruckness"),
Simin Daneshvar,
Parviz Natel-Khanlari,
Jamal Mirsadeghi,
Mina Assadi and others. He also traveled to southern Iran, specifically areas of the
Persian Gulf coast, and wrote ethnographic travel literature. In the 1960s,
freedom of expression diminished greatly in Iran. Sa'edi and other intellectuals protested the Ministry of Culture and Art policy of 1966 forcing all publishers to seek state permission to print literature. In 1968, after their protests failed, Sa'edi and other writers formed the Kanun-e Nevisandegan-e Iran ("Association of Iran Writers"). Although censorship of some of his works continued, Sa'edi continued to publish. In addition to dramas, stories, novels, and screenplays, Sa'edi participated in the publication of
literary magazines,
scientific journals and also published fifteen
translations of European psychological and
medical literature. In 1973,
Amir Kabir Publishers made Sa'edi editor of
Alefba, a quarterly literary magazine. However, in 1974 the
Pahlavi government banned the journal and
SAVAK, its
secret police, arrested and tortured Sa'edi. Already having a history of suicidal thoughts, Sa'edi's depression loomed after his release from Tehran's infamous
Evin Prison nearly a year later. . The late 1970s and early 1980s saw Sa'edi's last attempts to promote democracy in Iran. In 1977, he partook in the event Dah Shab-e Sher ("Ten Nights of Poetry") in Tehran organized by the Association of Iranian Writers in cooperation with the
Goethe-Institut. The International Freedom to Publish Committee of the
Association of American Publishers invited Sa'edi to New York City where he spoke and met American playwright
Arthur Miller. After the revolution, he joined the
National Democratic Front, a
liberal leftist party founded (in honor of Mosaddeq) in opposition to the
Islamist right wing led by
Ayatollah Khomeini. After the foundation of the
theocratic Islamic republic and the execution of his friend, the playwright
Saeed Soltanpour, Sa'edi fled to France via Pakistan. In 1982, in Paris, he founded the Association of Iranian Writers in Exile and reestablished the journal
Alefba. Additionally, he co-founded the exilic ''Anjoman-e Te'atr-e Iran'' ("Iranian Theater Society") and wrote two more plays, in addition to several essays. Although it did not halt his literary activities, the torment of exile exacerbated Sa'edi's depression and alcoholism. In 1985, after years of heavy drinking, Sa'edi was diagnosed with
cirrhosis. He continued to drink until admitted to St. Antoine's hospital in Paris on 2 November 1985. On 23 November, he died with his wife and father by his side. Days later he was buried, with a memorial organized by the Association of Iranian Writers in Exile, at
Père Lachaise Cemetery near
Sadegh Hedayat's grave. ==Education==