11 - The Fact and Fiction of a Homeland

Summary

In Chapter 11, “The Fact and Fiction of a Homeland,” I have selected a work of fiction, Zeyn al-Abedin Maragheh’i’s Seyahat-Nameh-ye Ibrahim Beik/Ibrahim Beik’s Travelogue (1903). Born and raised in Iran, and after traveling around the region extensively, Maragheh’i finally settled in Istanbul, where he published his pioneering work of fiction and wrote extensively on current affairs for the leading progressive journals of his time. The significance of his magnum opus, Seyahat-Nameh-ye Ibrahim Beik, is that its protagonist is an Iranian who lives in Cairo and decides to travel to his homeland, and thus Maragheh’i writes it as a travelogue. The author uses this narrative plot in order to bring his lead character to visit his homeland with the fresh eyes of a familiar foreigner. The significance of this book is not just in being one of the most highly influential documents of the Constitutional period, but the fact that the genre of travelogue had become so widely popular that it informed the writing of one of the earliest works of fiction in Persian. What is particular about this book is the manner in which it reverses the gaze and the angle of vision back on Iran. It is no longer an Iranian who travels abroad, but an Iranian who travels home. This completes the cycle and brings the genre to a symbolic closure.