Power in the smallest room

A soldier and his double

Kamali reads Hofre through the power relations surrounding Qasem. Desire, jealousy, family authority and a wish to be mourned shape the soldier’s choices. The enemy who resembles him disrupts the opposition between two national sides, making the killing approach a form of self-destruction. Source 1 · Source 2

The essay also raises an objection. By concentrating on personal motives, Kamali argues, the story leaves the institutions and propaganda recruiting young people to war largely outside its scene. He connects that absence with a broader discourse of silence produced under censorship, rather than presenting the story as beyond criticism. Source 1 · Source 2

Authority at home

The Wound brings his argument into a displaced family. Farokhondeh earns the household’s living while her father depends on her and resents her independence. Kamali follows the objects and gestures through which the father’s imagined violence becomes hesitation and injury to himself. Source 1 · Source 2

For Kamali, these stories make changing relationships visible through precise dramatic situations. His appreciation of their human equality and attention to women coexists with his concern about institutional power. The earlier issue site and later publication label preserve two appearances of this one essay. Source 1 · Source 2

The dispute over human equality

Kamali also recalls a hostile response to Hofre by Reza Rahgozar, the pen name of Mohammad Reza Sarshar. As Kamali presents it, the objection was to treating an Iranian and an Iraqi soldier as human equals rather than distinguishing them through religious and political allegiance. The dispute makes the story’s refusal of a ready-made enemy consequential beyond its fictional scene. Source 1 · Source 2

That response reaches this reading through Kamali’s account. His footnote says he retains a note of Rahgozar’s article but lacks its bibliographic details. Its original wording and publication date therefore remain unestablished here. This is a specifically reported controversy around Hofre, distinct from Rabihavi’s recollections of criticism directed at his earlier war writing. Source 1 · Source 2

Sources & credits

1. Mehrak Kamali · fiction and power

   Persian critical essay in Baru, issue six. This site labels the article February–March 2022; the earlier issue site labels issue six June–August 2021. These are publication labels for the same essay.

2. Baru · earlier issue-six version

   The earlier Persian issue-six presentation of Kamali’s essay. Its summer 2021 issue label remains separate from the later site’s 2022 date.