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Introduction: Iran's Literature 1977-1997

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak
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Introduction
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Iranian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 3-4: Selections from the Literature of Iran, 1977-1997 , Summer Fall 1997 , pp. 193 - 213
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Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1997

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References

1. For a detailed examination of change in Iran's literature, particularly its poetry, in the twentieth century, see Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad, Recasting Persian Poetry: Scenarios of Poetic Modernity in Iran (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

2. For an English translation of this work, see Ahmad, Jalal Al-e, Plagued by the West (Gharbzadegi), tr. Paul Sprachman, with a foreword by Ehsan Yarshater (Delmar, N.J.: Caravan Books, 1982)Google Scholar. For a general survey of anti-West sentiment among Iranian intellectuals of the period, see Hanson, B., “The ‘Westoxication’ of Iran: Depictions and Reactions of Behrangi, Al-e Ahmad, and Shariᶜati,” The International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) 15, no. 1 (Winter 1983): 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Some titles include Naraqi, Ehsan, Ghorbat-e gharb (Alienation and the West) (Tehran: Amir-e Kabir, 1974) and Āzādī, ḥaqq va ᶜadālat (Liberty, Rights, and Justice) [Ehsan Naraqi in conversation with Esmaᶜil Khoᵓi] (Tehran: Javidan, 1977)Google Scholar. By far the most significant contribution to this trend in Iranian thought came from cAli Shariᶜati, a populist sociologist known for rhetorical maneuvers that would highlight the revolutionary potential of Shi'ism, the branch of Islam closely associated with Iranian national identity. See ᶜAli Shariᶜati, Marxism and Other Western Fallacies: An Islamic Critique, tr. Campbell, Robert (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1980)Google Scholar; and What Is to Be Done, tr. A. Alidust and F. Rajaee (Houston: Institute for Research on Islamic Studies, 1986).

4. Some of the works in this vein are included in the following: Ahmad, Jalal Al-e, Iranian Society: An Anthology, comp. and ed. Hillmann, Michael (Lexington, Ky.: Mazda Publishers, 1982)Google Scholar; and Gholam-Hoseyn Saᶜedi, Dandil: Stories from Iranian Life, trs. Campbell, Robert, Javadi, Hassan, and Meisami, Julie S. (New York: Random House, 1981)Google Scholar. See also Forugh Farrokhzad's “I Pity the Garden,” in Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad, An Anthology of Modern Persian Poetry (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978), 156–59Google Scholar.

5. For an English translation of this work, see Behrangi, Samad, The Little Black Fish and Other Modern Persian Stories, tr. Eric, and Hooglund, Mary (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1976)Google Scholar.

6. As examples of this particular ideological composite, see Bayat-Philipp, Mangol, “Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani: A Nineteenth Century Persian Nationalist,” in Kedouri, Ellie and Haim, Sylvia G., eds., Toward a Modern Iran: Studies in Thought, Politics and Society (London: Frank Cass, 1980), 65–95Google Scholar.

7. On Hedayat, see Katouzian, The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer (London: I. B. Tauris, 1994)Google Scholar; on Jamalzadeh, see Balay, Christophe and Cuypers, Michel, Aux Sources de la Nouvelle Persane (Paris: French Institute of Iranology, 1983)Google Scholar; on ᶜEshqi and Nima, see Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry, 210–85.

8. For examples of this critical approach, see ᶜAli Dashti's Damī bā Khayyām, translated into English as In Search of Omar Khayyam (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1971)Google Scholar; Shamisa, Sirus, Sayr-e ghazal dar sheᶜr-e Fārsī: az āghāz tā emruz (The Evolution of the Ghazal in Persian Poetry: From the Beginning to Today) (Tehran: Ferdowsi, 1983)Google Scholar; and Mohammad-ᶜAli Movahhed, Shams-e Tabrīzī (Tehran: Tarh-e now, 1996). For an example of the same approach applied to twentieth-century poetry, see Langarudi, Shams, Tārīkh-e taḥlīlī-ye sheᶜr-e now (An Analytical History of Modernist Poetry), vol. 1 (Tehran: Nashr-e markaz, 1991)Google Scholar.

9. On the Shāhnāmeh, see Mohammad-ᶜAli Eslami-Nodushan, Sarv-e sāyeh-fekan: dar bāreh-ye Ferdowsi va Shāhnāmeh (The Shadowing Cypress: On Ferdowsi and the Shāhnāmeh) (Tehran: The Ministry of Islamic Guidance Press, 1991)Google Scholar; on the ghazals of Hafez, see ᶜAli Dashti, Naqshī az Ḥāfeẓ (An Image of Hafez) (Tehran: Ebn-e Sina, 1960)Google Scholar; on Iranian views regarding various European literatures, see Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry, 101–122. See also Lotf-ᶜAli Suratgar, Sokhan-sanjī (Tehran: Ebn-e Sina, 1969)Google Scholar; and Mohammad-ᶜAh’ Eslami-Nodushan, Jārn-e jahān-bīn: dar zamīneh-ye naqd-e adabī va adabiyyāt-e taṭbīqī (The World-Revealing Cup: On Literary Criticism and Comparative Literature), 5th ed. (Tehran: Nashr-e Jami, 1991)Google Scholar.

10. In addition to Mikhail Bakhtin's general theory of the sociality of all literature and of the analogical nature of the literary discourse, I am indebted in this theoretical discussion to the following works, where issues related to topicality and relevance are examined at some length: Fowler, Roger, Literature as Social Discourse: The Practice of Linguistic Criticism (London: Batsford, 1981)Google Scholar; Culler, Jonathan, The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980)Google Scholar; and idem, Framing the Sign: Criticism and Its Institutions (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988).

11. As I explain toward the end of this introductory essay, the notion of exile as a positive environment for literary activity is more relevant to some recent works than to those produced in the early years of the Iranian diaspora. For an examination of the negative impact of exile on the work of one Iranian writer, see Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad, “Up from the Underground: The Meaning of Exile in Gholamhossayn Sacedi's Last Short Stories,” in Fathi, Asghar, ed., Iranian Refugees and Exiles since Khomeini (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers), 257–79Google Scholar.

12. The idea of literature as a mirror of society has a long history in the Persian tradition. In modem times it has been confirmed both by Iran's understanding of the relations between literature and society in European cultures and by Orientalist approaches to Persian literature. In 1914, for example, Browne, E. G. wrote: “True literature is the mirror of contemporary thought and sentiment, and the alternating phases of hope and despair of the Persians during the last eight years (1905–1913) are well reflected in the ephemeral literature of that period” (The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia [London: Cambridge University Press, 1914], xvi)Google Scholar.

13. On the tradition of poetry reading in modem urban Iran, see Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Anjoman” (William L. Hanaway).

14. The works read and recited in this event have been collected in a book that bears the title of the event itself. See Dah shab, comp. Naser Moᵓazzen (Tehran: Amir-e Kabir, 1978).

15. For a more detailed analysis of this gesture, see Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad, “Of Hail and Hounds: The Image of the Iranian Revolution in Recent Persian Literature,” State, Culture and Society 1, no. 3 (Spring 1985): 148–80Google Scholar.

16. See Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad, “Revolutionary Posturing: Iranian Writers and the Iranian Revolution,” The International Journal of Middle East Studies 23, no. 4 (November 1991): 507–531CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. On the mood alluded to here see Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad, “Poetry against Piety: The Literary Response to the Iranian Revolution,” World Literature Today 60, no. 2 (Spring 1986): 251–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. For a general study of this discursive shift, see Dabashil, Hamid, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: New York University Press, 1993)Google Scholar, and Boroujerdi, Mehrzad, Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996)Google Scholar. For the part played by Al-e Ahmad, see Moaddel, Mansoor, Class, Politics, and Ideology in the Iranian Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 147–52Google Scholar.

19. On the Tudeh Party's cooperation with the Islamic republic, see Moaddel, Class, Politics, and Ideology, 217–18.

20. For a detailed analysis of the poem, see Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad, “Preservation and Presentation: Continuity and Creativity in the Contemporary Persian Qasida,” in Sperl, Stefan and Shackle, Christopher, eds., Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa: Classical Traditions and Modern Meanings (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 253–80Google Scholar.

21. On some aspects of the cultural politics of the Islamic Republic, see Siavoshi, Sussan, “Cultural Policies and the Islamic Republic: Cinema and Book Publication,” The International Journal of Middle East Studies 29, no. 4 (November 1997): 509–530CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Official efforts aimed at Islamicization of Iran's literature in this period have been discussed in Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad, “Authors and Authorities: Censorship and Literary Communication in Post-Revolution Iran,” in Marashi, Mehdi, ed., Persian Studies in North America (Bethesda, Md.: Iranbooks, 1994), 303–330Google Scholar.

23. For a comparison between censorship in monarchial Iran and in the Islamic Republic, see Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Censorship in Persia” (Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak).

24. For a background to the Iran-Iraq war see Desouki, Ali E. Hillah, ed., The Iraq-Iran War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the early war years, see Taqavi, Jiman, “The Iran-Iraq War The First Three Years,” in Rosen, Barry M., ed., Iran Since the Revolution: Internal Dynamic, Regional Conflict, and the Superpowers (New York, Columbia University Press, 1985), 63–82Google Scholar.

25. On the poetry of Simin Behbahani in the context of Iranian women's emerging voice in the twentieth century, see Milani, Farzaneh, Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992)Google Scholar. For an analysis of “The Man with Folded Pants,” see Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, “Az doroshtī-ye jang tā nāshakībāᵓī-ye jān: chashm dar chashm-e ‘Mardī keh shalvār-e tā-khordeh dārad'” (“From the Harshness of the War to the Impatience of the Soul: Eye to Eye with “The Man with Folded Pants',” in Nimeye Digar, 2nd series, no. 1 (Fall 1993): 83–113. For an analysis of “Consider the Camel,” see Houra Yavari, “Az khār beh khun” (“From the Thombush to Blood“), ibid., 114–28.

26. ᶜAli-Akbar Saᶜidi-Sirjani was eventually arrested in 1994 and died while in the custody of the security forces of the Islamic republic. For a detailed discussion of his life and works, see Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad, “A Story-Teller and His Time: Saidi Sirjani of Iran,” World Literature Today 69, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 516–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27. On Iranians in the disaspora, see Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Diaspora” (Fariba Zarineh-Baf Shahr), particularly the section on Iranians in Ottoman Turkey. On various facets of Iranian life in exile in the last two decades, see Fathi, Iranian Refugees and Exiles since Khomeini. On the process of culture formation among exiled Iranians, see Naficy, Hamid, The Making of Exile Culture: Iranian Television in Los Angeles (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

28. The significance of recent writings by Iranian women living in Iran necessitates a far fuller study than space allows here. For an early assessment of the issue, see Talattof, Kamran, “Iranian Women's Literature: From Pre-Revolutionary Social Discourse to Post-Revolutionary Feminism,” The International Journal of Middle East Studies 29, no. 4 (November 1997): 531–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.