Hamzeh Ganji, psychologist, evaluated the state of psychological books in Iran as positive and said Iranian translators are not behind western writers, while there is little interest in compiling books in Iran.

IBNA: Hamzeh Ganji believes that high demand for specific and general psychological books shows that the audiences really need such materials.

Referring to academic books in Iranian market he said that such books are really useful and are often translated in light of global issues in order to respond to the needs of psychology students. The books are currently taught at European and American universities as textbooks. 

Ganji asserted that Iran’s book market is up-to-date and many page-turners reach our market. I have a positive view of current compilations and translations and have witnessed how translators follow the latest publications, he added. 

Commenting on the low number of original compilations in Iran, Ganji said: “Book compilation is time-consuming and requires persistence, whereas translation id free of such chores. Anyone with relative familiarity with the language and composition can offer an appropriate and acceptable translation to the audiences. However in spite of abundant translations, I find compilations satisfying as well. In order to compile a book, one needs external motivations besides one’s personal interest.” 

According to him, financial problems are the first obstacles to compilations as many volumes are published in about 1000 copies and yet it takes almost five years to get sold out. 

Then criticizing the surveillance procedures of culture ministry, he said that sometimes word or phrase monitoring – instead of thematic surveys – stops the publication of certain books while no expert has ever assessed the usefulness of such books. 

Ganji also believes that the presence of various translations of a certain volume is positive as today’s world is an arena of competition and it is up to the audiences to decide which translation is made better and with more loyalty to the original. 

He added that education and books are much cheaper than many other goods in Iran and people should learn to include books in their budgets. For instance, he added, the cost of all the books a student should buy for a semester is lower than that of a cell phone and yet books are thought to be expensive. We have become sensitive to books while we have become used to purchasing consumptive goods. 

As for the solutions for increasing reading culture, he remarked that it is a time-consuming procedure. First of all families should encourage their children to read, whereas today they usually criticize the teens that spend much time on reading novels. He also finds the role of schools and teacher significant in this regard. Another problem, he added, is the bulk of schoolbooks the kids should cover and this leaves no room for other books. 

Hamzeh Ganji holds a PhD degree of general psychology from Paul Valery School in France and has published many books and articles. 

He was born in 1941 in Marand and is now director of Savalan, Publisher of psychological books in Iran.

Id : 140755