Censoring an Iranian Love Story Book

I appreciate this kind of literature. It's unusual, inventive and awakes interest and insight. The story centers around an author who is struggling to write a novel, and get around the censorship intrusions. The phrase "... For which the farsi language has no words" is occurring frequently. Since he lives in Iran there are many rules that can compromise his story, and he has to fight against and deceive the man in charge of censorship, Mr Petrovich, the authority Campaign Against Social Corruption and even the self-censorship that has its roots in culture.

References to many great works of literature, like Kafka's "The Trial" and Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" are mentioned. Dostoevsky's own Mr Petrovich is playing a similar role in this story. Even ancient arabic masterpieces as "Khosrow and Shirin" and "Shahnameh" (The book of Kings) are frequently referred to. This is a beautiful approach and reminds the reader of the the "One thousand and one night"-ish beauty of the old Iran.

The difficulty to meet someone you love in a heavily gender segregated community is very well portrayed by Mandanipour. Both sexes have their shoulders loades with expectations from family members, and it's not easy to make a decision for yourself when the family's well living is depended on you.

The author in the story struggles with what he wants to write, what he has to write to receive a publishing permit, and what the characters themselves want to do. The most memorable part is perhaps when the author argues and even gets into a fight with one of his own main characters.
"You shouldn't have written me like this. You shouldn't have written me as browbeaten and pathetic. You wrote me as an earthworm. You wrote me so that no matter what they do to me, all I can do is squirm and bear the pain. You wrote me like this to pass your story through censorship. I don't want to be written as an earthworm, so that even when they cut it in two it turns into two earthworms. You are my murderer too, for having written me as so utterly miserable. All the torment and misery there is you have written for me. You are no different to the torturer who would flog me so that I would concede there is a God. I want to write my own murder" - p. 229.

Even if many problems are described by Mandanipour, it is with a humorous touch, and a warm heart. There's no doubt he really loves his country and the biggest problem is not being able to show the world the real Iran, behind all the rules, in all its beauty. The censorship troubles him deeply, and prevented him from publishing during some years in the 90's. Anyway, the author feels that there's nowhere in the world where love stories are as beautiful and exciting as in such a place. He also thinks, with his mischivious wit, that it will be the censorship that will earn an Iranian author the Nobel price, ironically, since it forces the qualities of innovation and creativity within the author.

Mandanipour has a dialogue throughout the book. He talks to the reader and his characters in an exceptional way, which adds a shimmer of magical realism to the story. A story within a story. Books about books create a wonderful feeling inside a reader like me, a feeling of being united, a feeling of belonging, and the link to other readers of the world suddenly becomes visible. Mandanipour's writing is a spring of literary enjoyment and thoughtfulness.