We Are All Sacrificial Prey

We Are All Sacrificial Prey is a collection of essays, discourses, and writings by Shahrokh Meskub. The first part of the book focuses on reason, its meaning, and its role in the thought of Nasir Khusraw. It then delves into committed Persian poetry during the 1950s and 1960s, the Iranian Writers’ Congress, and examples of ideological poems, accompanied by critiques and interpretations. This section specifically examines Nimā Yushij’s ‘The Prayer of Amin the Bird’ and Ahmad Shamlou’s ‘The Poem of Life.’ Shahrokh Meskub’s knowledge and insightful observations are remarkable; avoiding biases, he maintains a thoughtful distance from the issues he discusses. In We Are All Sacrificial Prey, there is also a note on the memoirs of the Tudeh Party warriors, written entirely impartially and devoid of prejudice. Meskub comments on the lack of personal feelings and experiences in these memoirs, along with their transformation into dogmatism, reducing their lives to ideology. Shahrokh Meskub considered himself an essayist far more than a researcher. Consequently, his writings convey profound insights and selections of his thoughts rather than professional statements or examples. In parts of the book containing personal notes and memoirs, he includes his dialogues with Houshang Ebtehaj, Bahman Mohasses, Morteza Keyvan, Siavash Kasraei, and others, sharing theories and discussions about poetry, art, and literature.