A defense destined to be sacred? Conflicting narratives and the contentious beginnings of Iran–Iraq war literature in Iran

Abstract

The Iran–Iraq War (1980-1988) has been a major theme in Persian fiction published in Iran since 1980. Within Iran, the literature of this war is often framed as the “literature of the Sacred Defense,” in reference to the Iranian regime’s narrative of the war as a “battle between truth and falsehood.” Although this portrayal of the war has been challenged, especially since 1988, literary historians and critics generally characterize wartime literature as one dominated by Sacred Defense discourse. By contrast, this article demonstrates that the state’s capture of the literary sphere emerged through processes of incentivization and censorship that elevated one literary discourse on the war while suppressing another. It reads early examples of war literature in Iran as containing the kernels of literary counternarratives of the war and calls for a more inclusive and nuanced reading of some of the earliest published wartime literature.