Before the censor’s desk

The pressure before submission

Rabihavi describes self-censorship as something that starts before a manuscript reaches an official reader. Anticipating rejection, a writer may remove a passage, avoid a subject or decide not to imagine it at all. His concern is the pressure on the act of writing, rather than only the cuts visible in a printed book. Source 1

The publisher also enters this account. Knowing which passages are likely to encounter objections, an editor may ask for changes before submitting the book. Rabihavi describes several layers of constraint between a private sentence and a public reader. Source 1

He gives an example of a work that never reached the page. As a young man, he wanted to explore questions about God in a play, but says he never dared to write it for paper or stage. Looking back from England, he explains that the questions belonged to his younger self’s knowledge and beliefs. The example is an unwritten intention, rather than a missing published play. Source 2

What the story must be allowed to know

The conversation moves beyond administrative censorship to the range of lives a story can recognise. Rabihavi wants fiction to look outside the writer’s own professional world and attend to ordinary occupations, beliefs and relationships. He connects a narrowed social imagination with the conditions under which writers work. Source 2

He says he would like to read a story centred on a young Basij volunteer: where that person comes from and what passes through his mind. He also asks about a well-meaning schoolteacher’s relationship with pupils and feelings about the surrounding world. These are examples of lives he wants fiction to explore, rather than announcements of particular books. Source 2

His discussion of technique belongs to the same argument. A narrative method should help a particular story reach the reader. He resists treating technique as a separate display of sophistication that obscures the people and events being narrated. Source 2

Books and the publications around them

Rabihavi names Andisheh-ye Azad and Nameh-ye Kanun among the Iranian Writers’ Association publications to which he contributed. He remembers one special issue responding to the attack on universities and a later war issue carrying In the Plain. The writing enters a network of magazines and collective publishing before the interview turns to individual books. Source 1 · Source 2

He recalls From This Place losing two stories before publication and Gisu waiting four years for permission to print one thousand copies. He says Iranian Four Seasons and Maryam’s Smile were refused permission. These are recollections of particular submissions and manuscripts; the separate edition ledger keeps their later publication histories and differing dates visible. Source 1 · Source 2

He says his publisher tried unsuccessfully to arrange a second printing of From This Place. During the same wider period of restricted publication, he recalls spending six years seeking permission for three books. The six years describe that effort across three manuscripts, rather than a separate six-year wait for each title. Source 2

Writing continued through meetings in one another’s homes, where friends read their latest stories aloud without expecting publication. He remembers occasional appearances in Adineh or Donya-ye Sokhan after passages had been cut or changed. These private readings offered an audience when a printed book remained out of reach. Source 2

The earlier article’s introduction names three collective projects associated with the Thursday meetings: Eight Stories, Kanizu and Other Stories and The Third Landing. It reports that the latter two were pulped before publication. This information belongs to the editorial introduction, while the account of submitting his own books comes from Rabihavi’s replies. Source 1

Two publication dates

The Zamaneh page is dated 15 February 2011. Introducing the same conversation in 2023, Hossein Noushazar says it first appeared on 19 March 2010. These are different source labels, preserved here without turning a republication into a new interview. Source 1 · Source 2

Freedom after the border

Leaving Iran does not, in his account, immediately remove the habits formed under censorship. He describes an effort to release his writing from restrictions he had absorbed over many years. The change of country creates possibilities, while the writer must still recognise the fears and prohibitions that have become internal. Source 2

What literature discovers

Rabihavi gives literature a task beyond providing pleasure: discovering feelings and experiences people conceal even from themselves, and bringing what has been hidden into view. He also wants writing to leave a record for later generations of realities that those in power would prefer to suppress. These are his aims for literature, rather than a claim that every story must carry an explicit political lesson. Source 2

Asked about an earlier generation of writers, he questions whether its prominence proves that later writers are less capable. He points instead to the periodicals, criticism, cooperation between colleagues and public regard that supported earlier work. His answer asks the reader to consider the conditions surrounding a literary career as well as individual talent. Source 2

He distinguishes religious belief from support for a government, and remembers capable writers who left state-supported institutions. On technique, his own preference for minimalism does not rule out other approaches. Poetry, everyday speech and different narrative methods can contribute to a story; for him, the test is what they make possible within the particular work, rather than allegiance to a school. Source 2

Finding a method inside the story

His advice to younger writers is to look for a method within the story itself, rather than treating translated accounts of literary theory as a rulebook. He questions how readers can assess the quality of the many translations available to them, and recognises that artistic expression takes different forms in different cultures. His argument is for attentive reading of how a particular work achieves its effects. Source 1

Sources & credits

1. Radio Zamaneh · censorship and self-censorship

   Persian questions and answers from Daftar-e Khak. The page prints 15 February 2011; the later Baang republication gives a different original-publication date.

2. Baang · republication of the censorship conversation

   Republished 3 October 2023. Hossein Noushazar’s introduction attributes the conversation to Daftar-e Khak and dates its first publication to 19 March 2010.