A review by hilaryreadsbooks
Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour

3.0

 “I am an Iranian writer tired of writing dark and bitter stories, stories populated by ghosts and dead narrators with predictable endings of death and destruction…For these reasons…I, with all my being, want to write a love story.” So begins the narrator of our novel as he embarks upon the writing of a passionate romance in a country where being in love is as difficult as the telling of the love story itself. The tale unfolds slowly and painstakingly in bold text with frequent interruptions by the author; strike-throughs and ellipses are pervasive as he agonizes over the possibility of censorship. No mentions of breasts or thighs, or pupils darkened with desire, or the awareness of landlines wiretapped by the government, or political persecution (or if included, it must be coded in roundabout, metaphorical ways that won’t attract the attention of censors). This is a literary struggle paralleled by the furtive ways the lovers communicate through codes and across distance, desperate to meet but wary of punishment. 

This is a novel deeply aware of itself, almost seething with a desperation for freedom that surpasses the author’s own. As we progress, the author’s world and the world he has created begin to seep together, to the point where one of the characters becomes so real that he is able to grab the author by the throat and shove him up against the wall, to the point where the love story becomes (with a sense of inevitability) much more than a love story. Cleverly, its own awareness is a strong testament to the power of narrative as well as a questioning of intent and the dynamics between writer, society, and art. Really—CENSORING AN IRANIAN LOVE STORY is an incredible balance of thoughtfulness, humor, and wit. 

One note: this book is filled with literary references, many of which I had to look up (like I’m breaking a code, hah), and most of which I feel I don’t have the literary knowledge to thoroughly analyze / interrogate. But one such reference I wanted to call out was the continued appearance of the corpse of a “hunchback midget,” which is later tied to the story of a hunchback in One Thousand and One Nights. In the 1001 Nights story, the dead hunchback seems to be used as a plot device in an interrogation around chained causation, blame, and narration—themes that clearly tie in with those of CENSORING AN IRANIAN LOVE STORY. But seriously. Disabled people being used as plot devices is something I’m tired of reading, no matter the supposed metaphorical “literary value” (even ones I don’t fully understand yet). 

[Thanks to the publisher for a gifted copy of this book]