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Translating Women’s Experience: A Note on Rendering the Novel
- The Feminist Press
- Chapter
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Touba and the Meaning of Night1 is the second of Shahrnush Parsipur ’s novels to be translated into English. The first, her brilliant short novel Women Without Men,2 was published in English in 1998, and both books, along with a few of her other novels, have been translated into other European languages. The English-language publication of Touba and the Meaning of Night, often considered Parsipur’s masterpiece, must be considered as a major literary event, allowing a whole new readership access to the finest work of a unique and important Persian writer. Touba and the Meaning of Night resembles Women Without Men in terms of its themes, its popularity with Persian-language readers, and the controversy that it created at the time of its publication in Iran. Both books, along with many of Shahrnush Parsipur’s other novels, also represent a break with the literary norms of Socialist Realism that generally prevailed in Iran in the years before the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The story of Touba does not have a conventional realistic ending, and its frequent shifts between reality and imagination transgress the rules of the dominant prerevolutionary literary trends. Time is not confined to the period of the story, but rather travels to the distant past through the narrative’s inclusion of historical and mythical stories—smoothly integrating, for example, a bloody tale of medieval Iran into the present. Touba and the Meaning of Night is also different from prerevolutionary works in that it Translating Women’s Experience: A Note on Rendering the Novel vii TOUBA030206.qxd 3/7/06 12:08 PM Page vii portrays the upper class and royalty neither as entirely negative nor as simple foils in a larger class conflict. Indeed, as in many postrevolutionary writings by women, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual issues eclipse class issues. Without claiming that Parsipur’s works belong to a new genre hitherto unknown, it must be said that her texts do frequently blur the boundaries not only between reality and fantasy, but also between novel and history. She often seems to be eager to tell the history behind her stories, and the stories of her people’s history—both at the same time, and often in the same breath, fast and infuriated, as if she is about to run out of time, as if she will soon be prevented from writing . And indeed, Parsipur did a lot of her writing in her available time between prison terms in those post-1979 violent revolutionary days. In any case, the importance of history to Parsipur’s fiction presents special challenges for readers outside Iran who lack an intimate familiarity with the history of ancient and medieval Persia and of modern Iran. During her journeys into the distant past, especially through the stories related by Prince Gil, Parsipur describes the thirteenth-century invasion of Persia by the Mongols under the leadership of Genghis Khan, a brutal campaign that by some accounts killed millions, reduced major cities to rubble, and marked the end of what many consider a golden age in Persian culture. Touba’s own long life begins in a largely pre-modern Iran under the Qajar dynasty, during the reign of Naser O-Din Shah (1848–1896). As a child she experiences the effects of modernization , including the encroachment of European powers—especially of the British and Russian empires, which were embroiled in their strategic “Great Game” for control of Central Asia. When Naser ODin Shah is assassinated, power passes to a chain of other Qajar monarchs—Mozafar O-Din Shah (1896–1907), Mohammad Ali Shah (1907–1909), and Ahmed Shah (1909–1925). These changes take their place in the background of the narrative, along with such events as the Constitutional Revolution of 1906: Touba’s mentor, real life leader of the constitutionalist movement Mohammad Khiabani , is called Mr. Khiabani in this story. In addition to being a spiritual leader, Mr. Khiabani is a member of Iran’s first parliament and Translating Women’s Experience viii TOUBA030206.qxd 3/7/06 12:08 PM Page viii [3.238.6.55] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:06 GMT) represents the elusive promise of Persian democracy. Likewise, Touba’s life is dramatically affected by the 1909 coup against Mohammed Ali Shah. Touba’s husband, a Qajar prince, is forced to flee to Russia, leaving Touba to raise their four children alone. Another important shift in Touba’s life occurs when Reza Khan, soon to be crowned Reza Shah Pahlavi...