When the Smoke of War Was Seen in the Sky

The work

Original language: Persian

A story of the opening war years. The inspected Yashar text introduces Naji as fourteen, although his slight build makes him look younger. He searches for his brother at the front and returns to a village damaged by bombing. In the later Aasoo conversation, Rabihavi recalls the book’s publication, reprints and early readership, while describing his intention to write what he had witnessed.

Source 15 · Source 18 · Source 12

The publication story

1. Autumn 1359 (Iranian calendar) · Named edition

   The Yashar colophon in the original scan, distinct from the later website upload.

   Source 12

2. 1359 (1980–81) · Author recollection

   Rabihavi recalls publication and reprinting in 1359. Aasoo’s interviewer places it in autumn; an earlier author conversation says late 1359. These are separate recollections and do not establish the date of each reprint.

   Source 15 · Source 18

Editions and credits

Sources

12. When the Smoke of War Was Seen in the Sky · Yashar imprint

    Printed imprint · The original 42-page scan has a genuine cover on PDF page 1, Yashar colophon on page 3 and matching publisher back cover on page 42. The imprint reads autumn 1359 and reserves printing rights. The January 2025 upload path is not the publication year. Visually checked 4 October 2026; no complete English text is supplied.

15. Literature and war · Maryam Foumani · Aasoo

    Author interview · Published 28 July 2023, following a conversation in summer 2022. The author discusses early war books, displacement, Maryam and Boys of Love. Recollections are distinguished from edition imprints.

18. Censorship and self-censorship · Radio Zamaneh

    Author interview · Page dated 15 February 2011. Author replies identify Memoirs as a story collection and discuss licences for Gisu, From This Place, Maryam and Iranian Four Seasons. The introductory chronology contains an apparent error.

Other readers, other voices

1. War remains a shared suffering

   Review · Shabnam Kohanchi · Ketab News · credited to Etemad · Persian · 27 September 2023

   Kohanchi’s survey sets Rabihavi’s early war writing beside other accounts of displacement, injury and civilian life.

2. Before a single war narrative

   Scholarship · Amir Moosavi · Middle Eastern Literatures · English · Published online · 3 August 2026

   The abstract proposes a more inclusive history of the earliest Iran–Iraq war fiction.

3. Two stories at the beginning

   Scholarship · Mehdi Tahmasebi · Shahrekord University · contemporary-literature journal · Persian · Volume 4, issue 2 · Esfand 1404

   An academic record compares Rabihavi’s early war story with Nasser Moazin’s The Last Look from the Khorramshahr Bridge.

4. The people outside the heroic frame

   Review · Faraj Sarkohi · Radio Farda · Persian · 12 September 2010

   Sarkohi’s wider survey values war fiction that changes the reader’s understanding of ordinary lives.

5. A southern landscape in words and pictures

   Profile · Uncredited feature · Hamid Pourbahrami and other named speakers · Radio Zamaneh · Persian · 27 December 2021

   A feature on Hamid Pourbahrami’s artwork brings Rabihavi’s recollection of water buffalo into its account of southern lives and landscapes.

6. The war through a child’s gaze

   Review · Khadem · Shahrara News · Persian · 25 September 2023

   A survey of war fiction reads When the Smoke of War through Naji’s search for his brother.

7. Two early books · a selected-book bibliography

   Selection · Wikipedia contributors · no individual byline · Persian Wikipedia · Children’s Book Council bibliography · Persian · Selection year not established

   Two early Rabihavi titles appear in a secondary selected-book bibliography; the originating annual lists remain unidentified.