Iranian literature – the censor’s mindset
The Islamic Republic has a strict and often arbitrary system of censoring artistic and journalistic works. An in-depth investigation by writer Alireza Abiz uncovers the details and their impact on the book trade.
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| Courtesy Qantara.de. |
Mahmoud Doulatabadi’s novel “The Colonel”, Amir Hassan Cheheltan’s novel “Revolution Street” and Shahriar Mandanipour’s “The Courage of Love”: three novels with much in common. Their authors come from Iran, they are viewed as important works of Iranian contemporary literature and they are highly political. All three works have thus far been published in numerous nations – but not in Iran.
None of these books stood a chance of receiving publication clearance from Iranian government censors. Every year, innumerable literary works share the same fate – of which only a modest number make it into German translation. The Islamic Republic has a rigid system of censorship affecting books, films, music, media reports and all other artistic and journalistic works. Anyone intending to publish a book must present it in advance to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. This decides whether the work receives a publication clearance or ban – or whether it can be published with revisions ordered by the ministry.
Numerous essays have been written and statements made on the censor’s code of practice, most of them in interviews with Iranian authors in exile, but these do not delineate any clear strategy, in fact the accounts are sometimes even contradictory. This indicates the censor’s arbitrary methods. Now, London-based Iranian writer Alireza Abiz has conducted a thorough investigation of the censorship system. Abiz has published several volumes of poetry and translated poets such as Ted Hughes, Allen Ginsberg and William Butler Yeats into Persian. As a result, he has had to deal with the ministry several times himself. Translations of foreign-language works are also appraised and often censored.
