Dowlatabadi, Mahmoud

The Iranian author Mahmoud Dowlatabadi was born in the village of Dowlatabad in Khorasan Province near the border with Afghanistan, and this is where his novels and short stories are set. As a young man he worked with his father in the fields, chopped wood and sold melons at the local market. He was interested in Persian mythology and he was an avid reader from an early age. He went to school for six years until he had to leave to help out in the family.