Adapted literature from the eve of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution

From The HAKUBI Center for Advanced Research Program, Kyoto University Book talk by Dr Miki Kinoshita

This study examines the role of literary adaptations in pre-revolutionary Iran during the late Qajar period. It demonstrates how Persian intellectuals transformed translated European works into dynamic sites of political thought, language reform, and social critique. 

By analyzing key figures who navigated French, Ottoman, and Persian text networks, the book explores how adaptation served as a powerful tool for intellectual modernization. The research highlights how early translators reshaped narrative techniques to engage local readers and foster constitutional discourse. Ultimately, it reveals the dynamic intersection of translation, original creation, and political philosophy prior to the Constitutional Revolution.

Speaker

Miki Kinoshita is an Assistant Professor in the Hakubi Project and the Graduate School of Letter at Kyoto University. She also lectures part-time at Doshisha and Osaka Universities. She received her PhD in Language and Culture from Osaka University in 2023. Her research focuses on modern Persian intellectual history and adaptation literature in the late Qajar period. 

She is the author of Literary Adaptations on the Eve of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution: The Intersection of Translation, Creation, and Thought (2026), which received the Research Encouragement Award from the World Literature Society 2026.

Header image: Pawel Czerwinski (Unsplash)