A novel and a nation in protest

A room in Tehran

Asked about Maryam’s Smile, Rabihavi recalls people displaced from southern Iran who sought accommodation in Tehran. The novel follows intimacy under crowded and precarious conditions. The conversation keeps a family’s relationship close to the circumstances in which they have to live. Source 1

The passages restored in exile

Rabihavi describes years of waiting for permission and his refusal to accept the requested cuts. He says that writing abroad allowed him to return to scenes he had previously constrained, including intimate ones. Publication history becomes an account of changes within the writing, not simply a sequence of dates. Source 1

Experience transformed

When the interviewer asks whether a particular scene is autobiographical, he identifies it as imagined while acknowledging experiences from which its feeling could grow. This distinction recurs across his interviews: observation and memory feed fiction without turning each scene into a factual confession. Source 1

A conversation in November 2022

The final questions turn to women protesting in Iran and to the hopes and failures of his generation. These answers are Rabihavi’s political interpretation at that time. The article connects the older novel with a contemporary conversation, while keeping the novel’s characters distinct from those later events. Source 1

A title and a gesture

Explaining the title, Rabihavi sees the child’s smile as a sign of something good and beautiful amid difficult conditions. He also recalls a youthful image behind an intimate scene: lovers kissing through railings. He describes transforming an observed possibility into fiction, without presenting the scene as a complete account of his own life. Source 1

The novel’s Ozra and Issa recall the university generation that hoped socialism would bring justice and equality after the monarchy. Looking back, he considers the distance between those aspirations and what followed. The characters carry political hopes within a relationship; they are not offered as representatives of every young person of the period. Source 1

In November 2022 he describes women’s resistance as a long history beginning well before the current protests, and welcomes men joining them. From London, he also says he is not well placed to know exactly what is happening inside Iran and urges caution. The hope and the limit on his knowledge belong together in this dated conversation. Source 1

Sources & credits

1. Le Point · a novel and a nation in protest

   French interview conducted by Valérie Marin La Meslée, 13 November 2022. Maryam’s Smile, its publication history and Rabihavi’s views on the protests of that period.