The"classical" period of Persian literature, whose product was almost exclusively poetry, is generally considered to have ended in 1492, with the death of the poet JamI. A "literary revival" began in the nineteenth century, in the wake of renewed cultural contacts between Iran and the Western world, and gained momentum in the twentieth century. The revival has been manifested primarily in the introduction and expansion of journalism, the novel and the short story, and, on a smaller scale, of secular plays. In fiction, there has been a surge of activity since 1941. The two major figures, however, produced their first and most celebrated works between the two world wars: S. M. 'A. Jamdlzdda's first collection of short stories (1921) and Sadiq Hidayat's short novel, The Blind Owl (1937), though the latter became publicly available only in 1941. H. Kamshad's Modern Persian Prose Literature traces these developments, dwelling on a few writers, including Jamdlzdda, 'Alavi, Hijazi, and most fully, Hidayat, giving brief notices of a number of others, such as Jalal Al-i Ahmad, Sadiq Chfibak, Bih Azin, and Taq! Mudarresi, and mentioning still others, with lists of the major works, through 'All Muhammad Afghani's 1961 lengthy novel of traditional life in an Iranian city of the 1930's.