Mahmoud Hosseini Zad

Mahmoud Hosseini Zad (; born 8 April 1946) is an Iranian translator of contemporary German literature. He is also a writer, interpreter, literature jury member and docent.

In the early 70s, Hosseini Zad graduated from LMU Munich in political science. Then, he came back to Iran and began to work as a translator for the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, IRIB, and also began to teach German language in the University of Tehran, Azad University, Tarbiat Modares University and language institutes in Tehran. At the same time he published two collections of short stories.

He has translated the works of Bertholt Brecht, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Judith Hermann, Ingo Schulze, Uwe Timm, Peter Stamm, Julia Franck. He also wrote some plays, for which he was awarded.

Invitation by the Centre Dürrenmatt Neuchâtel

In April 2015, the Centre Dürrenmatt Neuchâtel organized a reading and a discussion circle with Mahmoud Hosseini Zad as part of the Printemps culturel. He spoke about the Dürrenmatt's popularity in Iran, his own activities as a translator and he read from his translations. He said about the Dürrenmatt's works in an interview with Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen:

Hosseini Zad said about the censorship in Iran:

In an interview with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, he said about some sort of censorship lifting in the Rouhani's era:

– Mahmoud Hosseini Zad: Deutschlandfunk Kultur He said about the cultural policy changes after Ahmadinejad: There are already movements. A simple example is that the publisher of my translations in the Ahmadinejad's regime had 17 totally forbidden works. These works didn't receive any publish permissions but nowadays there are some freedom and hope, but there is also a gap and we hope it will be removed soon.|Mahmoud Hosseini Zad| 2013: In a survey among the Iranian authors und critics by the Iranian cultural magazine Tajrobeh, The Sky, Full of Clouds was chosen as the best book of the year – in the category of story. 2012: In a survey among the Iranian authors und critics by the Iranian cultural magazine Tajrobeh, The Wet Sky was chosen as the best book of the year – in the category of translated stories. 2012: The short stories When Did This Snow Fall ...? was awarded the Haft Eghlim literature prize. 2010: The translation of Judith Hermanns book Alice was awarded the literature prize Es war einmal as the best translation of the year.