The month of Mehr is associated with passing of two outstanding personalities who made endless efforts to bring education and literature to the children of our country, Hossain Ebrahimi Elvand and Masoumeh Sohrab. Elvand, the kind friend of children who every year in this month went to schools with bundles of knowledge for the young adults, and Masoumeh Sohrab who was one of the pioneers of creative education in Iran.
Masoumeh Sohrab was born in 1925 in Tehran, in a prominent educated family. Her childhood and young adulthood coincided with the period when Iranian history was making the transit from tradition to modernity. She was educated in schools where the atmosphere and educational methods were fundamentally different from traditional Maktabkhaneh. In her case however, before learning from school she learned from her parents. After the Second World War she completed high school and chose to become a teacher. The movement of nationalization of petroleum started at this period and she joined the movement where he met her husband Yahya Mafi.
Due to limited educational activities in the Iranian society at that stage, they both decided to engage in such activities, while she attended university at the same time. As their first experience they opened Mehr Kindergarten, a successful experience that later became the foundation of Mehran Primary school. For more than two decades some thousands of students were educated at their school with special emphasis on arts and reading. The emphasis on cultural activities was so great that after the Islamic Revolution the library at Mehran School had more than 11,000 volumes of books. Masoumeh Sohran and Yahya Mafi worked closely with Touran Mirhadi and Abbas Yamin Shrif, both pioneers of modern education in Iran. The group founded The Children's Book Council in 1960s where it became the house of the friends of children and children's literature in Iran. Masoumeh Sohrab passed in 2004, she was a life long friend and supporter of the Children's Book Council.
Three years after Masoumeh Sohrab passed away, Iranian children lost another good friend. Hossain Erahimi Elvand, the prominent translator of children and young adult’s literature. He battled with cancer for years and finally passed away in early month of Mehr in 2007. A prominent personality in children's literature, he found his way on his own, following his dream and powerful ideas. He was born in 1951 in a village near Golpaygan. He moved to Terhran with his family, completed school and high school and graduated from Tehran University in English language. After the Islamic revolution he was employed by the Ministry of Education and spent many years in educating young adults. In 1980s he started translating books for children and young adults. For some fifteen years he translated more than hundred books for children and young adults and earned many prizes from government and nongovernmental organizations. The first novel he wrote for children "The parrot of Esfahan", was published by the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults.
In order to help young translators, he made tremendous efforts to establish the House of Translation, an organization that obtained and collected appropriate books from reputable international publishers. Many well known translators of today selected their books from the library of House of Translation. Further on Hossain Ebrahimi Elvand focused on translation and publication of reference books on theory of children's literature. The first of these books was “Through the Eyes of a Child” that was translated by a group of prominent translators. Hossain Ebrahimi Elvand, despite deteriorating physical condition, never stopped his efforts to contribute to the literature for Iranian children. He passed in early days of the month of Mehr and left his memory and works in the minds of his friends.
We remember both prominent personalities of Iranian children's literature with admiration.