An Investigation into the Postcolonial Discourse in Beyzaie’s Hezar Afsan Kojast?

Bahram Beyzaie’s recent monograph on the 1001 Nights—Hezar Afsan Kojast? (Where is Hezar Afsan?) (2012) is a groundbreaking body of research in the Nights’ scholarship in Persian literature. Trying to find the answer to the title question, he traces every reference to the frame tale of the Nights since its creation and follows it down to the mythological beliefs and stories of the Indo-Iranian race. The work seems to be a response to, what Beyzaie considers, the European and Arab scholars’ intentional ignorance of Persian origins of the Nights, and attempts to bring a ‘national heritage’ back to the Iranian literature, art and culture. It also reveals a new development in the employment of the nationalist discourse in Beyzaie’s oeuvres. While in his plays and other research books, since the beginning of his career, Beyzaie uses such dominant sociopolitical discourses as the nationalist/nativist discourse, the socialist discourse, and romantic nationalism, in the recent text, he draws upon a postcolonial discourse to blame not only the Arabs but also the Western Arabists who, he believes, have overlooked the Iranian roots of the 1001 Nights. In this paper, I will discuss in brief different dominant nationalist discourses in Beyzaie’s works, the context of Beyzaie’s encounter with the Nights, and then elaborate on the postcolonial discourse in Hezar Afsan Kojast?