¹ For a brief history of the conflict: Saskia Gieling, “Iran–Iraq War,” Encyclopedia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iraq-vii-iran-iraq-war (accessed December 9, 2011). For detailed essays on the conflict, see for example: Chubin, Shahram and Tripp, Charles, Iran and Iraq at War (London, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gieling, Saskia Maria, Religion and War in Revolutionary Iran (London, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The “Sacred Defense” is a large political project, not only related to text production. It is devoted to reenacting the memory of the war and making it alive and present in people's lives.

² Hoseini, Zahra, Da: Khaterat-e Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseini, beh Ehtemam-e Seyyedeh A‘zam Hoseini (Tehran, 2008).Google Scholar Seyyedeh is an honorific title given to females recognized as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatemeh and son-in-law Ali. Zahra and A‘zam Hoseini are not related.

³ I became interested in it when I was in Tehran in May 2011 for the annual book fair, as I saw people queuing to buy it. I then talked privately to several of these people, three-quarters of them women, who were going to read it or bought it as a gift, and responses went along the lines of: “You know, usually, I don't read all these ‘Sacred Defense’ books. The war is old-fashioned, but this book is different.”

⁴ “L'audience accordée aux responsables du Centre artistique et de l'édition du livre Da,” May 13, 2010, http://www.leader.ir/langs/fr/?p=contentShow&id=6774 (accessed December 12, 2011). The book has been available on Ayatollah Khamenei's website since March 2011.

⁵ Halliday, Fred, “Year II of the Islamic Republic,” MERIP Reports 113 (1983): 5.Google Scholar The Basij-e Mostaz‘afin (Mobilization of the Oppressed) is a paramilitary force created in 1979, which supplied most of the young soldiers to the front. Today, it is a force in charge of the internal security of the country, directly reporting to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. See the article by Alfoneh to understand its role in Iranian Politics: Alfoneh, Ali, “The Revolutionary Guards’ Role in Iranian Politics,” Middle East Quarterly XV, no. 4 (2008)Google Scholar. For a study of the new ideology of martyr among basijis, read the article by Khosrokhavar: Farhad Khosrokhavar, “Chiisme mortifère: les nouveaux combattants de la foi,” L'homme et la société 107–8 (1993).

⁶ For an analysis of some of these texts: Rahgozar, Reza, Nim Negahi beh Hasht Saal Qesseh-ye jang (Tehran, 2001).Google Scholar

⁷ In two universities of the country, Semnan and Kerman, you can graduate with a master's degree on the literature of the Sacred Defense. These are state universities (as opposed to the many private universities in the country), and the scholarly discourse is far from critical in these programs. Most of it repeats the discourse of the government.

⁸ For an overview of the cultural institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, see chapters 1 and 2 in: Devictor, Agnès, Politique du cinéma iranien: de l'Ayatollâh Khomeyni au Président Khâtami (Paris, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The Howzeh-ye Honari depends on the Islamic Development Organization (Sazeman-e Tablighat-e Eslami), under the authority of the Supreme Leader. It is independent from the government and thus runs parallel to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (Vezarat-e Farhang va Ershad-e Eslami). Although it propagates an Islamic and revolutionary rhetoric, it has some space to innovate because it bypasses censorship. In music, for example, the Howzeh-ye Honari published Mohsen Namjoo's first official album in Iran, Toranj, in 2007, whereas the Ministry of Culture had rejected the release of his previous albums.

⁹ “Sacred Defense Books Travel Around Iran,” June 16, 2011, http://www.iranbooknews.com/vdcefv8zojh877i.1kbj.html (accessed December 9, 2011).

¹⁰ Dehqan, Ahmad and Sprachman, Paul, Journey to Heading 270 Degrees (Costa Mesa, CA, 2006).Google Scholar

¹¹ Paul Sprachman, a scholar of Persian literature at Rutgers University and translator, is working on the translation of Da into English.

There is a special issue of the journal Ketab-e Mah devoted to the book: “Da,” Ketab-e Mah. Adabiyat 23 (March 2009/Esfand 1387); a special issue of Keyhan-e Farhangi 270–71 (March–April 2010/Farvardin–Ordibehesht 1388); a special issue of the weekly Panjereh 41 (8 May 2010/18 Ordibehesht 1389): 50–66. Thanks to Shahab Esfandiary for his help in finding some sources.

¹² Khorramshahr is a city on the front line on the Iranian side. It gained a mythical status during the conflict and was called Khuninshahr (“the city of blood”) because it was almost entirely destroyed by Saddam Hussein's forces.

¹³ The quantitative results are based on a telephone survey of a sample of 4,000 persons in Tehran province and the qualitative results on an internet survey of 648 persons. The questionnaire was online in spring 2012 on the http://www.baztab.net and http://www.ensani.ir websites. It can be found at this address: http://mrjavadi.com/da/index.asp. Doctor Javadi-Yeganeh, from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Tehran University, then sent the first results by email to all the persons who answered the online questionnaire, this author included.

¹⁴ “Da,” March 28, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcsPCuhH9n8&feature=related accessed December 9, 2011).

¹⁵ Hoseini, Da, 11. My references are to the 107th edition. Translations from the Persian are mine.

¹⁶ “Consideration and Criticism Session for the Book of ‘Da’ in Academy of Art,” Islamic Development Organization, September 16, 2008, http://www.ido.ir/en/en-n.aspx?n=13870626071 (accessed December 10, 2011).

¹⁷ Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseini, “I Found my Friends Again with This Book,” September 29, 2009, http://www.women.gov.ir/pages/?cid=7269 (accessed December 9, 2011).

¹⁸ Mohammad-Reza Javadi-Yeganeh insists on this difference in his article, which can be found online: Mohammad-Reza Javadi-Yeganeh, “The Woman's Narrative Da on the City War in Khorramshahr. About the Causes of the Reception of Da,” May 8, 2010, http://www.mrjavadi.com/detail.asp?id=350 (accessed December 12, 2011).

¹⁹ Goodreads is an important literary forum used by Iranians, which shows comments and ratings of readers. The rating of Da was 3.58 out of 4 in December 2011 and it had been rated by 108 readers. The negative criticisms of the book accused the narrator of self-promotion: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6412246 (accessed February 7, 2012). This can be compared to the 2.53 rating of Fattaneh Haj-Seyyed Javadi's best-seller Bamdad-e Khomar, but out of a number of readers ten times higher. For examples of comments by readers: Fatemeh Dehqan, “Under the Influence of the Book Da,” December 15, 2008, http://durna_n.persianblog.ir/ (accessed December 13, 2011). We read the account of a woman in her forties, living in Karaj, the suburb of Tehran, and how she has been influenced by the book. She mentions the fact that quality literature about the war is scarce, but that this book is vivid and really makes one understand the realities of the war.

²⁰ “Over the past decade, Iran's best-selling fiction lists have become dominated by women, an unprecedented development abetted by recent upheavals in Iranian society. The number of women who have published novels has reached 370, said Hassan Mirabedini, a scholar of Iranian literature, whose findings recently appeared in the magazine Zanan (Women). That is thirteen times as many as a decade ago, the research showed, and is about equal to the number for men today. But the women's books are outselling the men's by far.” Nazila Fathi, “Women Writing Novels Emerge as Stars in Iran,” New York Times, June 29, 2005.

²¹ Kurds make up approximately 15–17 percent of the Iranian population, as reported by Amnesty International in its 2008 report. Iran: Human Rights Abuses Against the Kurdish Minority, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE13/088/2008/en/d140767b-5e45-11dd-a592-c739f9b70de8/mde130882008eng.pdf (accessed December 13, 2011. There are strong independence and opposition movements among Iranian Kurds, who have been repressed since the Islamic Revolution. Shia Kurds, who compose about 27 percent of Iranian Kurds, are supposed to take a minor part in these movements, as they feel closer to the Shia regime than Sunni Kurds. See: Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organizations, “Iranian Kurdistan,” http://www.unpo.org/members/7882 (accessed September 12, 2012).

²² Hoseini, Da, 457.

²³ On the difference between autobiography and memoir, see Jolly, Margaretta, ed., Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms (London, 2001).Google Scholar

²⁴ Genette distinguishes between “authorial paratext” and “editorial paratext”, and between “peritext” (which is part of the book, including preface, dedication, illustrations) and “epitext” (which is outside the book, including interviews of the author). Gérard Genette, Seuils (Paris, 1987).

²⁵ “Like the autobiographer they (memoirists) want to make their lives count in the public record; unlike autobiographers they tend to be less sure that their lives will count.” Helen Buss, “Memoirs,” Encyclopedia of Life Writing (see note 23), 595.

²⁶ Hoseini, “I Found my Friends Again with This Book.”

²⁷ I did not find reliable statistics on the publication of memoirs compared to other genres, but it is a fact that most literary critics to whom I talked in Iran mention: memoirs are rising, and it is easy to see the trend when browsing Tehran's bookshops.

²⁸ “Da,” Ketab-e Mah, 37.

²⁹ Hoseini, Da: 656.

³⁰ Ali Ferdowsi, “Bamdad-e khomar,” July 15, 2009, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bamdad-e-komar (accessed December 15, 2011).

³¹ Hoseini, Da, 334.

³² Lejeune, Philippe, Le pacte autobiographique (Paris, 1975).Google Scholar

³³ Thomas Couser, “Authenticity,” Encyclopedia of Life Writing (see note 23), 72.

³⁴ For an example of her attachment to Iran and to the city of Khorramshahr, see Hoseini, Da, 529.

³⁵ Afshar, Iraj, “Publishing in Iran after the Revolution,” General Introduction to Persian Literature (London, 2009), 480.Google Scholar

³⁶ “Winners of 9th Ghanipour competition,” March 6, 2010, http://manzar.ir/2008-12-30-19-34-01/40-book-awards/542-winners-of-9th-ghanipour-competition.html; “Press conference of ‘Da,’” March 2, 2010, http://www.ibna.ir/vdciv3aq.t1apz2lict.html (accessed December 10, 2011).

³⁷ Twelve dollars is more than double the average price of an Iranian paperback novel. The hard-back cover and the size of Da partly explain this price.

³⁸ It is not possible to get the exact number of copies printed in Iran, as the official agency organizing the information on books, Khaneh-ye Ketab, does not give precise figures. The best way to estimate printing is by multiplying the number of copies by the number of reprints. For Da, the first editions were printed in 2,500 copies, some editions were printed in only 1,000 copies, and some in 5,000 copies, according to the publisher's data, which are probably exaggerated. It can be estimated that about half a million copies have been printed. This might be different from the number of copies sold, as it is not uncommon in Iran that some books supported by official institutions are printed in higher numbers than demanded, to be stocked in state libraries or later sent to the pulp making factory. See Mohammad Ghaed, “Shebh-e Mo'ama-ye Ketab dar Iran,” May 4, 2005, http://mghaed.com/essays/press&publishing/book_market_enigma.htm (accessed March 12, 2012).

³⁹ Afshar, “Publishing in Iran after the Revolution,” 478.

⁴⁰ Javadi-Yeganeh, “The Woman's Narrative Da on the City War in Khorramshahr.”

⁴¹ Ghamari-Tabrizi, Behruz, “Memory, Mourning, Memorializing. On the Victims of Iran–Iraq War, 1980–Present,” Radical History Review 105 (2009): 112–13.Google Scholar See the tables for the occupation, education, and rural/urban distribution of soldiers killed during the war. The article explains the use by political factions of divergent discourses on the war after its end. It insists that Hashemi Rafsanjani's discourse has largely contributed to make it an outdated period of Iranian history, about which the new middle class does not care.

⁴² Mohammad Ali Abtahi, “The Book Da,” May 21, 2010, http://www.webneveshteha.com/weblog/?m=06&y=1389 (accessed December 15, 2011).

⁴³ “Da,” March 28, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su0ZULZWw4Q&feature=related (accessed December 16, 2011). See also this page for Bani-E‘temad's comments: Rakhshan Bani-E‘temad “Da was the Unspoken Part of the History of the War, for Which We Still Pay the Outcomes,” November 5, 2008, http://www.iricap.com/articlecontent.asp?id=29 (accessed December 15, 2011). For Habibzadeh's interview: Habib Habibzadeh, “Da Draws a Path of Blood,” November 8, 2008, http://www.iricap.com/articlecontent.asp?id=30 (accessed December 15, 2011).

⁴⁴ “The Book Da,” http://www.facebook.com/ketabeda (accessed December 16, 2011).

⁴⁵ Davud Khosravi, “Review of the Series Da,” June 21, 2011, http://www.ido.ir/a.aspx?a=1390033101 (accessed December 9, 2011).

⁴⁶ “TV Narration of Da,” June 30, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsZDUBdtVQo (accessed December 9, 2011).

⁴⁷ http://www.emtedadmags.com/article.asp?Art=1096 (accessed December 10, 2011).

⁴⁸ “The Views of Merila Zare‘i and Gowhar Kheirandish on the Book Da,” November 22, 2011, http://avinyfilm.ir/main/index.php?Page=definition&UID=1039651 (accessed December 13, 2011).

⁴⁹ “Homayun As‘adiyan Directs the Series Da with the Producer Manuchehr Mohammadi,” November 20, 2011, http://www.cinemanegar.com/articleview.php?cat=34&id=3175 (accessed December 13, 2011).

⁵⁰ “Da,” May 25, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/user/movahedi2009 (accessed December 10, 2011).