Harmony of Hope and Fear in Contemporary Fantastic Narratives in Iran

Based on popular tradition, Persian fantastic literature first appeared though translations at the beginning of the twentieth century after the movement of “modernization” in Iran, while the country opened its borders to western literature. Yet censorship and repression before and after the Islamic revolution in Iran provided a significant scope of investigation for fantasy, in which imaginary helped man express his illusions. As a mirror reflecting his terror, fantastic narrative as a genre also unveiled the other face of human interiority: hope for a resurrection! In my paper, I’ll try to examine the representations of both hope and fear in Iranian contemporary fantastic literature. Aboutorâb Khosravi’s short stories as well as Reza Ghâsemi’s narratives are used as examples for this study.