Mehdi Sahabi (Qazvin, 1944 – Paris, 2009) was an Iranian intellectual with training in the fine arts, though he is remembered mainly as a translator. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran and at the Rome University of Fine Arts, but left both courses unfinished. The available sources say little about his paintings, so his work as a painter remains in the background next to his literary output.
His main activity was translating novels from English, French and Italian into Persian. Among the authors he translated were Gustave Flaubert, Charles Dickens, Stendhal, Italo Calvino and Louis-Ferdinand Céline. His most admired work is his translation of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, which took him eleven years. He won Iran's Book of the Year award, and after his win no translator received it for eighteen years.
He died of a heart attack in Paris on 9 November 2009. His funeral was held in Tehran.