Iranian Literature after the Islamic Revolution

Professor Laetitia Nanquette, a faculty member at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, is a scholar of contemporary Persian literature. She has written extensively on post-revolutionary literature, migration writing, and print culture. Her recent book, Iranian Literature after the Islamic Revolution: Production and Circulation in Iran and the World, offers a sociological analysis of the Iranian literary field and examines how literature circulates both within Iran and globally.

AO: To what extent has your academic formation and personal background shaped your understanding of Iranian literature as both a national and a transnational field?

LN: I spent all my childhood and teenage years in France, studied classical humanities in Paris, literature and philosophy, and then discovered Iran and Afghanistan the summer after my BA, through readings of novels and poetry. These resonated with me and I decided to start learning Persian, and then went to live in Iran. This was in 2005-2006. Iran has been a major part of my life ever since. I continued my studies in Iranian studies in the UK. Then I got a postdoc in the US, and then one in Australia, and Australia has now been home for 12 years. Because my love for Iran and Persian culture has evolved and flourished in many different places, working on Iran for me is very much entangled with the story of the Iranian diaspora and the global study of Iran. I believe Iranian studies needs multiple perspectives, including diverse geographical contexts, methodological approaches, and scholarly traditions. In what I write, I think it's also important to situate my work as a French/Australian scholar of literature working on Iran. My interests and position are reflected in the book. It is a book which relies heavily on fieldwork, and my access to some sources and not to others has also determined the research. 

In your book, you talk about the complexity and diversity of the Iranian literary field. How does the book account for this diversity?  In your view, what are the most significant transformations (as well as continuities) in the literary field after the Revolution?

I'd like to start by saying that this book was made possible thanks to the many literary practitioners, who have shared their knowledge and insights with me. They have helped me understand the complexity and sophistication of the Iranian literary field both in Iran and in the diaspora.

I hope I've been able to show this complexity and all the variations of Iranian literature. I wanted to narrate several aspects of the story of contemporary literature: both what happens within Iran and in the diaspora; the independent, the underground as well as the governmental field, which is often neglected in English-speaking scholarship; both canonical literature as well as popular and children’s literatures; and all the informal connections in between. 

Iranian literature after the revolution is on the margins of the world system and not global as such. However, it is important in several national systems, because it speaks to several national literary contexts (French, German, American etc.). I’m not proposing that Iranian literature be read as global. Persian has been a global language and literature at other times, but it’s not the case today. The constraints are just too many, as I explain in the book. But I believe that the analysis of Iranian literature as a global phenomenon, with comparisons between countries where Iranian literature has a significant place, is important. I really wanted to look at both Iran and the diaspora, because they’re often research fields that are separate. One of the things I’m trying to do in the book is to connect Iranian studies and the study of the Iranian diaspora. 

Something else about the diaspora. There’s a big commitment by Iranian literary practitioners to their new homes. This is perhaps surprising at first, knowing that Iranians tend to connect a lot with the national and cultural identity of their homeland. But it became evident to me that Iranian patriotism does not go against a strong relationship to the national literatures of their adopted countries. Iranian diasporic literatures are well integrated into the various national literary fields to which they contribute, and diasporic Iranian writers tend to be invested in their local cultures. For example, writers of Iranian origin in France like Marjane Satrapi write in French, belong to the French literary field and are very successful. This is also the case of many Iranian-American writers, across several generations. The fact that they often switch to writing in European languages instead of Persian is a critical factor in this regard. 

So, a thread in these findings is that my conclusions go against the grain of some of the current thinking in the fields of postcolonial and world literature, regarding increasing transnational exchanges and the disappearance of national borders. This is not what we see happening in the case of Iran and its diaspora. But these findings could not have been reached without studying the Iranian literary field with this global lens in mind. 

One final idea maybe, which I did not expect when I started this research is the continuities between the two periods of the Shah and the Islamic republic. Of course, the revolution was a massive watershed in terms of culture. There’s been the cultural revolution between 1980 and 1983, which revised the education curriculum, got new teachers, and massively changed both the institutions and the persons who worked in them. However, no revolution is a total erasing. You see cultural institutions that continue with different personnel. If you look at the Kanoon-e parvaresh-e fekri-e kookdakan va nojavanan (The Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults), founded by Farah Pahlavi in1965, this very important institution continues to do a similar work after the revolution. It is more ideologically oriented than it was before the revolution and its ideology has of course shifted, but its functioning does not drastically change. Also, it’s a time of upheaval, there’s the war between 1980 and 1988, so there are not unlimited funds to change everything in the cultural realm. These considerations should not diminish our understanding of the revolution as a profound cultural upheaval, nor should it obscure the fact that many Iranians had to leave their country. My point is to say that as scholars we tend to overemphasise radical changes while missing the continuities.

You draw on the Bourdieusian model of cultural production but argue that it must be adapted to account for the prominent role of what you call “governmental literature” in Iran. What key differences do you see between the Iranian literary field and literary fields elsewhere, and how did you address these differences in your analysis?

Bourdieu's theory of the cultural field is that in Western countries, culture operates in a battlefield where economic capital (sales, market share) constantly clashes with cultural capital (prestige, cultural legitimacy). In the Iranian case, the question of the market is less important, as the Iranian book market is largely isolated from the rest of the world for reasons I have mentioned above. So, the clash is more between politics and culture. Some scholars of non-Western countries have adapted Bourdieu, for example with works on China (Hockx 1999), South Africa (McDonald 2009; Van der Vlies 2012), and the Soviet Union (Lovell 2000). But I think the Iranian case helps moving from a Bourdieusian reliance on economics, to an additional focus on politics, along with religion and ideology.

You point to the widespread success of romance novels while noting the relative scarcity of genres such as crime fiction in the Iranian book market. How has censorship shaped the development—or underdevelopment—of certain literary genres in Iran? And how do you assess the role of self-censorship in this process?

Censorship is a major constraint to the literary field in Iran. It slows down the production and circulation of texts, and also forbids certain texts from ever circulating. On a macro level, I argue that certain genres like crime fiction, haven’t really developed as an Iranian form, partly due to censorship. This is not to say that crime fiction doesn’t exist. Translations of crime fiction are numerous, and there are series by well-known publishers that have developed the genre more recently, but it is marginal, especially compared to the massive role it plays in the book market of western countries. In the book I say crime fiction is about the disruption of order. In an Islamic society where justice is of paramount importance, it is impossible for the government to acknowledge that crimes are sometimes left unpunished, or that the police force may fail to do its job to the extent that private detectives are needed. The Islamic Republic regime does not allow for the publication of alternative visions of justice, either. The genre has therefore been unable to flourish. 

Self-censorship on the other hand plays a critical role in all forms and genres of writing. Of course, it is fluid, invisible, and largely unspeakable, and thus difficult to assess as a researcher, but I believe that we have enough instances of writers or publishers discussing their process of self-censoring to see how important it is to the shaping of the literary field. Writers, publishers and translators censor themselves to avoid conflict and social stigma, both with their loved ones and society in general, as well as with the government and the Ershad. So self-censorship is not only about avoiding trouble with the Ershad, it’s also about keeping face and not crossing social red lines. 

You examine the evolution of digital literature from blogs to Instagram. In your opinion, what is the main role of Instagram and of blogs in the Iranian literary sphere? 

Blogs first, in the 2000s, and then Instagram, have led to two effects: a democratisation of literature and a development of short forms. We can also argue that these media have promoted some topics which would be more difficult to appear in print and a form of literary language that is more popular.

Publication via blogs has also provided the context for the development of sectors like digital distribution and on-demand publication, which are giving new breadth to Iranian literature within Iran and in the diaspora. Iranian literary blogs helped develop trends that would have taken longer or might not have happened otherwise, for example the boom of the short form, "dastanak".

However, changes brought about by blogs to the Iranian literary field have been slowed down by the impact of censorship. When there was a decreased interest in the medium, the literary field moved to Instagram, which is interesting because it pushes engagement with the image, so we can notice for example forms of textgraphies and she’rgraphies. But Instagram works mostly as a means of promotion and communication, not of production of literary material, and the production of new form through this media is quite limited.

What is interesting in this respect is that Iran, which is largely isolated from worldwide trends politically, economically, and culturally, has followed a similar track to that of better-connected countries in the evolution of its blogosphere and of its use of Instagram.

You identify children's literature as a 'success story' both nationally and globally. Why do you consider children’s literature in Iran to be a success, and what advantages or privileges does it have that adult literature lacks?

Children’s literature has been more successful internationally than Iranian adult fiction and it is also a field that is more professionalised than the one for adults. Iranian authors have been nominated for important international prizes. Most recently, Farhad Hassanzadeh has been nominated for the international Astrid Lingren Award 2017 and for the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2018.

The Islamic Republic regime invested in the media with a large audience, cinema for example, as well as children’s literature, which has potentially high impacts on the formation of a new Islamic society. Cultural policies and support exist for children’s literature which don't for adult literature. 

This is also a field that is more professional and has been so for a long time, due to institutions like the Kanoon-e parvaresh-e fekri-e kookdakan va nojavanan, which was a very successful institution before the revolution and continues to be a crucial place to support children's literature. Such institutions are in large part an explanation for the circulation and success of Iranian children’s literature nationally and worldwide. 

A last element is the quality of illustrations and of Iranian illustrators, which play a large part in the recognition of Iranian children's book in the global book market and at literary festivals like the Bologna Children's Book Fair.

Iranian illustrators have continually received recognition at children’s book fairs: for example, Mohammad-Ali Bani-Asadi who won the New Horizon Award of the 2012 Bologna Children’s Book Fair and in 2015 the Hans Christian Andersen award.

You conclude that unlike in art, music, and cinema, in the literary field, interaction and exchange between Iranians inside Iran and the diaspora are very limited and rare. Why do you think this 'irreconcilable division' is so profound in the literature sector, particularly when compared to other cultural forms?

This is another finding I didn't really expect when I started this research. When I started working on this project, my idea was that literary texts and practitioners between Iran and the diaspora exchanged a lot. I was listening to Tehrangeles music in shared taxis and seeing DVDs of all sorts of films on the pavement of Tehran streets. There were lots of exchanges in general, and I thought that similar cultural exchanges existed in the literary field. However, my findings have largely shown the divide between Iran and the diaspora when it comes to literary production and circulation.

The Iranian diaspora is far-ranging and is otherwise well-connected to the motherland, but it’s not so much the case when it comes to literary exchange, and definitely not on the same scale as music or cinema. Some texts do travel of course, but it's on much smaller scale, if you compare literature with Iranian cinema, which has given Iranian culture a specific global presence, or visual arts, which, more recently, have been prominent on the international art scene. 

There is probably something about literature as a medium, it is not a mass media and it does not circulate to the same scale as film and music. But I think another reason is around the Persian language, which is the primary medium of the Persian text. This is an argument I've heard again and again from writers who lived in Iran: if you leave Iran, you lose your connection to the language, and therefore it's impossible to keep the connection to the readership. I don't know if I agree with this assessment, but it explains partly some of the divisions that I've noticed, and the fact that there is basically the literary field in Iran and the one in the diaspora, and these don't intersect much.

In this context, the work that some publishers, writers, translators and cultural institutions are doing to bridge the gap is even more inspiring. I want to insist on this and say that there are exceptions to this divide between Iran and the diaspora, which I analyse in the book, which are really exciting. 

What do you think are the main obstacles to the global spread of Persian literature, and why do publishers seem reluctant to invest in it?”

There are so many barriers that really, it's amazing to see that some texts get to western readers in translation. Sanctions, which mean in practical terms that there can't be financial exchanges between an Iranian publisher and a western one; censorship which slows down the literary field as a whole and makes it much less creative; lack of integration into the world book market; as well as internal divisions of the Iranian literary field between independent and governmental, but also reluctance by western publishers. Publishers are risk-adverse in general and there is not a large readership for Persian literature. despite this, there are amazing publishers who publish Persian literature, Zulma in France, Ponte33 in Italy. 

Finally, and this might not please everyone, but I think that modern Persian literature is largely elitist and not very reader-oriented, it is not much attuned to the demands of the reader and looks down on popular forms. This makes it a very difficult literature to translate for western audiences.

In your conclusion, you argue that within the Persian cultural system (both inside Iran and in the diaspora), the historical weight of literature—especially poetry—is gradually being replaced by visual media such as cinema and the visual arts. Could you explain how this shift manifests in practice, and what you see as the main reasons behind it?

There is a peripheralisation of the literary in the Persian cultural system. The literary has become less dominant. It does not mean it is being replaced entirely, but it is more interlinked with other arts than it ever was. Like everywhere in the world, Iranians consume a lot of visual media, and less traditional print texts. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're reading less, but practically, this means that the simple print page has a decreasing impact. 

Traditionally, Persian literature also had important visual elements, because of the importance of calligraphy. I wonder if we're going back to the pre-print age, with more weight given to visual elements than is traditionally the case with black ink on paper. I'm working on a book on the history of the publishing industry in Iran from 1953 to today, and hopefully I can give you a more complete answer to this next time!

Looking ahead, what emerging trends in Iranian literature do you find most exciting or promising? Are there any new voices or movements that you believe will shape the future of the field?

As of 2025, it's difficult to be optimistic about Iranian literature, as a lot of the literary field is on standby, with books waiting for a permission to publish, writers being threatened and a strengthened censorship apparatus. However, there have always been such periods in Iranian literary history, and we should be hopeful that this one will pass too. I think the Iranian book market will join the global book market at some point, and this will transform how literature works. 

The seclusion of Iranian literature means that there is no long-term back and forth between Iran and the world. The inscription in the world is an important aspect for stories to travel. More exchanges, more dialogue will be fruitful to writers and readers, who are already looking forward to this. As an example, the movement for the recognition of copyright is increasing in Iran. Discussion about joining international copyright agreements have been going on since the 1960s and never eventuated, but I believe many now recognise this is damaging to the vitality of the Iranian literary field and there is a push for following these agreements. 

Persian literature has often been highly connected, international and open. I'm looking forward to the moment when it will be back on the global stage to show readers its richness and complexity. I don't expect it will go back to being a lingua franca like it was from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century across Asia, but I believe it has a bigger role to play in the world.