Cofounder of the Tudeh (Communist party) in Iran, Alavi was jailed during the 1930s for his political views. In 1945, when Germany was defeated at the end of World War II, Alavi lived in the Communist nation known as the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. There he had both literary and academic standing. Alavi has written three volumes of short stories, a novel (Her Eyes), and, in German, a history of Persian literature. "The Lead Soldier" is considered one of the best short stories written in Farsi, the language of Iran.