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The Iranian Studies Initiative at UCSB and Farhang Foundation present

THE IRANIAN REALISM OF AHMAD MAHMOUD

A Lecture by Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian

Ahmad Mahmoud perhaps represents the most successful example of social realism in the history of the modern Iranian novel. In the literary culture dominated by experimental and modernist fiction on one side and best-selling melodrama on the other, Mahmoud adhered to social realism throughout his career. He was also a rare example of a writer achieving popularity among the elite and the general readership. In this talk, I discuss Mahmoud’s novels under three topics. First, through his writing, Mahmoud has tied his name to the city of Ahvaz. I will discuss how the literary construction of Ahvaz evolves across his novels and takes on a life of its own. Second, Mahmoud took the art of the realist novel in Iran to a new level. He absorbed and internalized the technics and methods of the nineteenth-century European realists and deployed them in the context of the Iranian south. Third, Mahmoud wrested the political fiction from the dry socialist realism of the writers affiliated with the Tudeh party while rejecting the art-for-art approach of experimentalists. I will show how he dramatized the political and seamlessly wove it into his vast, epic novels.

About Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian is the author of Then The Fish Swallowed Him (HarperCollins 2020). His short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Paris Review, New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. He holds a Ph.D in Comparative Literature from The University of Queensland, Australia, and an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU. He teaches literature and creative writing at CUNY City College.