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Magical Realism in Moniru Ravanipur's Ahl‐e gharq

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Nasrin Rahimieh*
Affiliation:
Department of Comparative Literature, University of Alberta

Extract

Moniru Ravanipur began her literary career in 1989 with the publication of her first collection of short stories, Kanīzū. The same year she published her first novel, Ahl-e gharq. Since then she has completed two other novels, Del-e fūlād and Kowlī kenār-e ātesh, another collection of short stories, Sang-e shaytdn, occasional stories for children, and a compilation of southern Iranian legends and beliefs, Afsānehā va bāvarhā-ye jonūb. Her fictional works are almost all set in the Persian Gulf region and center around local myths and legends. The language of Ravanipur's literary production also bears the distinct mark of her regional dialect, which as a native of the village of Jofreh (also the setting of her first novel) she maintained after moving to Shiraz, where she eventually received a degree in psychology from Shiraz University.

For Ravanipur, writing is inextricably linked with her littoral linguistic and cultural heritage.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1990

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References

1. “An Interview with Moniru Ravanipur,” Par 6.2 (1991): 22. All translations from Persian, unless otherwise noted, are my own.

2. Baharlu, Mohammad, “Rosūb-e taṣvīr dar Ahl-e gharq,” Donyā-ye sokhan 39 (Esfand 1369): 69Google Scholar.

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6. I borrow this term from the title of Michael Beard's first chapter of Hedayat's Blind Owl as a Western Novel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

7. For a representation of this debate see Mieke Bal, “The Politics of Citation,” Diacritics 21.1 (1991): 25-45.

8. “Criticism/Self-Criticism,” Lingua Franca (February/March 1992): 43.

9. For a thorough overview of the evolution of the term see Cuddon's, J. A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, Third Edition (New York: Penguin, 1991), 521-2Google Scholar.

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11. Ibid., 42.

12. Ibid., 32.

13. Ibid., 42.

14. Ibid., 34.

15. Ibid., 25.

16. Ibid., 101-2.

17. Ibid., 114.

18. Ahl-e gharq (Tehran: Khaneh-ye aftab, 1989), 9.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., 28.

21. Ibid., 99.

22. Baharlu, “Rosūb-e taṣvīr,” 70.

23. Ahl-e gharq, 66.

24. Ibid., 67.

25. Ibid., 127-8.

26. Shlovsky, Victor, “Art as Technique,” in Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays, trans. Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965), 12Google Scholar.

27. Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 226.

28. For the English translation of this passage I have relied upon Browne's, Edward G. rendering as cited in his A Literary History of Persia, vol. II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 14Google Scholar.

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30. Ahl-e gharq, 182.

31. Ibid., 182-3.

32. Ibid., 251.

33. Ibid., 258.

34. Ibid., 262-3.

35. Ibid., 389.

36. Ibid., 278.

37. Ibid., 139.