Esfandiary, F. M.

Author, philosopher, designer, long-range planner, and lecturer, FM-2030 was born Fereidoun Esfandiary on October 15, 1930 in Brussels, Belgium. His father, A. H. Sadigh Esfandiary, served in the Iranian diplomatic service from 1920 to 1960 and witnessed the rule of two Shahs, Iran's occupation in World War II and the struggle that restored Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to the throne in 1953. As a diplomat's son, F. M. Esfandiary spent his youth traveling between European countries, Afghanistan, Iran, and India. He attended primary school in Iran and England and completed his secondary education at Colleges Des Freres, a Jesuit school in Jerusalem. He represented Iran in the 1948 Olympic Games in London before moving to America to attend the University of California at Berkeley. He transferred from Berkeley to the University of California at Los Angeles and graduated in 1952. From Los Angeles, he followed the career path of diplomacy and served on the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine from 1952-54. Esfandiary's nomadic youth and his experience at the U.N influenced his idea of a future dominated by blurred national boundaries and identities.

Between 1959 and 1966, he turned to writing and published three novels, which were translated into twelve languages: The Day of Sacrifice (1960), The Beggar (1965), and Identity Card (1966). In addition to these novels, he published review and opinion essays in the New York Times, the Nation, Saturday Review and the Village Voice . Esfandiary's novels dealt with the struggle for identity amongst political, religious and social turbulence of the modern age. He was critical of what he considered underlying social tyrannies of the Middle East, including authoritarian family life and remnants of feudal behavior patterns. Esfandiary's theme of the meaninglessness of national identity, ultimately led to an existentialist critique of bureaucracy in his final novel, Identity Card . During these years Esfandiary maintained residences in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Tehran.

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