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Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan With the unleashing of the “War on Terror” in the aftermath of 9/11, Afghanistan has become prominent in the news. However, we need to appreciate that no substantive understanding of contemporary history, politics and society of this country can be achieved without a thorough analysis of the Afghan encounter with cultural and literary modernity and modernization. Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan does just that. The book offers a balanced and interdisciplinary analysis of the rich and admirable con- temporary poetry and fiction of a land long tormented by wars and inva- sions. It sets out to demonstrate that, within the trajectory of the union between modern aesthetic imagination and politics, creativity and produc- tion, and representation and history, the modernist intervention enabled many contemporary poets and writers of fiction to resist the overt politiciza- tion of the literary field, without evading politics or disavowing the modern state. The interpretative moves and nuanced readings of a series of literary texts make this book a major contribution to a rather neglected area of research and study. It is essential reading for students and scholars in comparative literary analysis, Middle East and Central Asian cultural studies and the emergent Afghanistan studies. Wali Ahmadi is Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. Iranian Studies Edited by: Homa Katouzian University of Oxford and Mohamad Tavakoli University of Toronto Since 1967 the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS) has been a leading learned society for the advancement of new approaches in the study of Iranian society, history, culture, and literature. The new ISIS Iranian Studies series published by Routledge will provide a venue for the publica- tion of original and innovative scholarly works in all areas of Iranian and Persianate Studies. 1. Journalism in Iran From mission to profession Hossein Shahidi 2. Sadeq Hedayat His work and his wondrous world Homa Katouzian 3. Iran in the 21st Century Politics, economics and confrontation Homa Katouzian and Hossein Shahidi 4. Media, Culture and Society in Iran Living with globalization and the Islamic state Mehdi Semati 5. Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan Anomalous visions of history and form Wali Ahmadi Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan Anomalous visions of history and form Wali Ahmadi First published 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2008 Wali Ahmadi All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ahmadi, Wali. Modern Persian literature in Afghanistan : anomalous visions of history and form / Wali Ahmadi. p. cm—(Iranian studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Persian literature—Afghanistan—History and criticism. 2. Persian literature—Political aspects—Afghanistan. 3. Politics and literature—Afghanistan. I. Title. PK6427.6.A3A33 2008 891′.55099581—dc22 2007036608 ISBN 0-203-94602-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 10: 0–415–43778–4 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0–203–94602–2 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–43778–3 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–203–94602–2 (ebk) To the memory of my parents and to Geeta, Yassna, and Yamna Contents Acknowledgments viii Introduction: the conundrum of modernity 1 1 Beyond “Mist and Pebble”: ordering the culture of modernity 16 2 The poetics of (national) truth content 38 3 Perilous ends of history: the rhetoric of commitment and the poetics of nationalism 62 4 Literature of Commandement and the crisis of commitment 88 5 De-centering dissent 114 Epilogue: contending with history 141 Notes 148 Bibliography 169 Index 181 Acknowledgments In the writing of this book, much gratitude is owed to many. I am particu- larly grateful to Amin Banani for his continued interest in, and unfailing support of, my research and scholarly endeavors over the years. I have bene- fited greatly from his encouragement and incisively subtle suggestions about my approach to contemporary literature in Persian. I have also learned much from the late Ali Razawi’s vast knowledge of literary and intellectual trends in Afghanistan. He was undoubtedly a genuine representative of modern Afghan literature and culture. The debt I owe to Wasef Bakhtari is, as it has always been, so immense that it is impossible to define or measure. His critical writings, his poetry, and his intellectual example have been a constant inspiration to me. My colleagues at the Near Eastern Studies department in Berkeley have provided me with a warm collegiate atmos- phere in which to finish this project. I am also indebted to my editor Kathryn Summer Drabinski. I should gratefully acknowledge that in the preparation of this book I received generous support from the Hillman Family Faculty Fund and a crucial sabbatical grant from the University of California’s Committee on Research. I dedicate the book to the memory of my parents and to my loving wife and daughters. I am deeply grateful to Geeta for her amazing patience, her charm, and her faith in my work. She endured so much while several drafts of the manuscript were being written, rewritten, and revised. No words can express the depth of my endless love and affection for my precious and adorable little angels Yassna and Yamna. Heartfelt thanks also go to my supportive sisters and brothers and delightful nieces and nephews. Wali Ahmadi Introduction The conundrum of modernity All works of art, including those that pretend to be completely harmonious, belong to a complex of problems. As such they participate in history, transcending their uniqueness. Theodor W. Adorno On October 1, 1901 the “Iron Am¯ır” Abd al-Rahma¯n died in Kabul. In the wake of the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001 in America, the iron rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan came to a violent end. The intervening hundred years—the tumultuous twentieth century—constitute Afghanistan’s intricate and often tortuous encounter with modernity. This book is not a study of Afghan modernity, in all its varied and complex facets, in a social context where aspects that are considered hallmarks of modernity remain full of paradoxes, contradictions, and twists and turns. Rather, as the first full-length analysis of a hitherto neglected area in the fields of contemporary comparative, post-colonial, and Persian literary studies, it is a study of the experience of cultural modernity as projected and expressed in the elaborate interweaving of texts and their socio-historical contexts in a “Third-World” society. More specifically, it elucidates the dynamic conjunction of intel- lectual and literary-aesthetic discourses with history and politics in the peculiar propagation and reception of modernity in Afghanistan. The experience of modernity can function to make historical development and social vitality more visible; literature has contributed to that experience throughout the twentieth century. Afghan writers of poetry and fiction were more than aware that the introduction of an array of continuous literary innovations radically reinforced the development of a modern literary- aesthetic discourse and the concomitant destabilization of traditional dis- cursive frames. Nevertheless, in what reveals the vigor as well as the protean nature of modernity, as inheritors of a long-preserved cultural legacy and literary tradition, these writers attempted to integrate a number of specific traditional literary forms and sensibilities within the emergent aesthetics. A distinguishing aspect of the new aesthetics consisted of the impulse towards synthesizing formal laws that derived from traditional literature—and 2 Introduction constituted the purported inherent autonomy of a work of literature—and its inexorable entwinement with the realms of ideological constructions, intellectual machinations, and social/political praxes. Therefore, as the fol- lowing chapters demonstrate, throughout the twentieth century, the Afghan reception of modernism has been characterized by the complex dialectic between poetics and politics, between textuality and historicity, between aesthetic autonomy and aesthetic purposiveness, and between literary- formalist innovations and socially-conscious commitments. It should be mentioned that modern Afghanistan has been officially a bilingual country. Both Persian (Dari) and Pashtu are considered the official languages of the state. Although a splendid array of modernist writings exist in Pashtu, the discourse of cultural and literary-aesthetic modernity in Afghanistan has been predominantly articulated in the Persian language.1 Despite institutional patronage of Pashtu throughout the twentieth century, Persian has remained the cohesive cultural force throughout the land. Modern
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