A New Genre, a New Reader; Situation of War Resistance Literature and Its Readers in Iran

1. A New Genre, a New Reader;Situation of War Resistance Literature and Its Readers in Iran Mohammad R. Javadi Yeganeh Associate Professor of Sociology University of Tehran School of European Languages and Literatures, University of Auckland 14 September 2011

2. Problem of literature in Iran • Increasing rate of published book, and increasing in literature book, • Increasing rate of love story • Decreasing rate of non-popular books.

3. Situation of Reading Novels in Iran • In literary novels over tenth printing, %90 of them were popular novels • In 449 best-selling printings, 118 (%26.3) were high novels, • The top best-selling novel, which was also popular, had 38 printings, while the second ranking was 22 for another two popular novel; however, the highest printing for a high novel was just 16.

4. General Causes of Popularity in Popular Novels • the end of the 8-year war • the large size and rapid growth of the young age groups • a quick increase in the number of educated, unemployed women • an overall development in convenience and well-being during the last decade of Iran • the spread of TV and low-quality soap operas

5. Causes of Popularity in Popular Novels;policy making • I. Ang states that the domestic popular literature is attacked from three angles: • Intellectual literature • Formal literature of the government • Western popular literature • The effects of the conflict between the intellectual literature and the formal literature on the growing popular literature

6. Existing Challenges in the Iranian Contemporary Literature • Two Major Fractions Governing Cultural Policiesin Iran • Conservatives • Reformists • The gap between the two parties goes back to their level of tolerance against the ‘opposition’ group. • The opposition party is said to be composed of those Iranian literati and artists who resist against the Islamic Republic’s criteria: Islam

7. Changing in Opposition High Literature Approach • Private tutoring classes for story writing • Numerous sitesand weblogs • Using international opportunity

8. Growth Popular Novels in Bipolarized Space • Iranian literary space has been devoid of the opposition high literary novels, and also formal successful literary works are neglected from the opposition. • Conflicts between intellectual and formal literature nourish the popular literary novels. • Negative outlook on the popular literary novels has brought negligence to them and lack of cultural policies.

9. Situation of High Literature • The Weakness of high literary Works: in this novels in Iran, ideas and style of writing is more or less the repetition of prevailing literature of the world. • the organizers of non-governmental prizes mainly complain about that.

10. The literature of leisure • Elite Writers have been written to fill the leisure time; • They do not study the serious and important events of the life and deal only with the regular details of normative life of modern societies; • The writer of these works deals with writhing within the format of prevailing styles and avoids new experiences.

11. War Resistance Literature, a New Genre

12. Lost land of Iran. 1813-1971

13. New Trends in Iranian Literature • War resistance memory • Outside the formal narrative of war resistance

15. Kusk Soft Soils. 329000 copies

16. Da (grandma) 500.000 copies

18. New Generations of Readers • The readers of these books usually have no relation with serious and elite novels • The new trend has created a new genre • Readers are placed in the middle point of popular and serious novels

19. New Horizons for Iranian Literature • war resistance literature has a potential to be worldly presented • This experience which has been tied with the Shiite mysticism and Iranian spirit can present a new experience to the world literature about the human nature and the broadness of his soul.