Female Martyrs in Esmāʻil Fasih’s Fictional Works

When the Iran-Iraq War broke out in 1980, Esmāʻil Fasih (1935-2009) was one of the first Iranian novelists to write about the conflict. During the war, he published two novels, Sorayyā dar Eghmā (Sorayyā in a Coma, 1984) and Zemestān-e 62 (The Winter of 1983, 1985) describing how the war affected the lives of the Iranians. Following the ceasefire in August 1988, Fasih continued writing about the conflict. Although, many Iranian post-war novels chiefly describe the active role of Iranian men in participation at the war, and their martyrdom, Fasih’s post-war novels, such as Kosht-e ye Eshq (Killed for Love, 1997) and Nāme’i be Donyā (A Letter to the World, 2000) take a step further to portray martyrdom of women, which is an oft-neglected theme in Persian war novels. In these novels, females are the main characters, who meet their martyrdom in different situations and they are characterized as martyrs. This paper will examine the representation of the female martyrs in Fasih’s post-war novels, by emphasizing their experience and outlook on the war. Studying the war novels from this perspective will illustrate how Iranian women contributed to the war.