The Book of Alley

The Book of Alley (Persian: کتاب کوچه‎‎ Ketâb-e Kucheh) is a series of books about Persian idioms and proverbs by Ahmad Shamlou coauthored with his wife Ayda Sarkisian.

History

Shamlou devoted four decades of his life to collect and organize Iranian folklore. Folklore in his prospective is a body of traditional belief, custom, and expression. The language, in general and oral languages, in particular addresses it through different uses such as proverbs, laments, cries and so on. Therefore the language could be used as an index to folklore as a body of tradition. The research work entitled Ketab Kuche (Translation: The Book of Alley) indexes the Iranian folklore through the Persian language. The book is a multi-volume, multi-disciplinary work designed as a major source of information, providing a detailed and accurate picture of an important world civilization over a span of several thousand years. Ketab Kuche is one of the third Iranian national projects on Persian heritage and language beside the encyclopedia Iranica, a multi-disciplinary reference work and research tool designed to record the facts of Iranian history and civilization and Dehkhoda dictionary, the largest comprehensive Persian dictionary ever published, comprising 15 volumes. 14 volumes of this book were printed during his lifetime.

After Shamlou's death, his wife Aida Sarkisiyan took responsibility for the book.