Modern Persian fiction includes writings in the Persian language in the genres of the novel (rumān) and the short story (dastān-i kūtāh) , as well as sub-genres such as novellas, romances, and other narrative works in prose. Didactic genres, such as fictional travelogues, are excluded. Several factors account for the emergence of modern Persian fiction, beginning with the ideas promoted by the political activists and writers of the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11, such as Mirzā Fatḥ ʿAlī Ākhūnd-zāda (d. 1878). They find their literary expression in novels