Another London

A city reduced to an inner weather

Writing during the period of Britain’s coronation, Keykavousi introduces a different London: the subdued, isolated city experienced by Sia in Daniel and His Father. He follows a day organised around a birth the narrator cannot welcome, rather than a city offering renewed belonging. Source 1

The review compares the day’s movement with the urban journey of Joyce’s Ulysses, while emphasising the absence of pleasure or discovery in this particular wandering. Bus journeys, a lowered hat and a switched-off phone become signs of a person protecting himself against contact. Source 1

Memory under suspicion

Keykavousi reads the narrator’s memories of his father beside his reaction to the newborn. He notes that the account of the father’s death cannot simply be taken at face value. The tension between inherited violence and unreliable memory sustains the reader’s expectation of a further disaster. Source 1

His criticism also observes how little access the narrator gives to other people, including Leili and Gol. The urban greyness is therefore part of a troubled perspective. This is a reading of the fictional character and his construction, rather than evidence of the author’s own feelings about fatherhood or London. Source 1

Sources & credits

1. Hadi Keykavousi · an Iranian birth in London

   Independent Persian, 21 May 2023. A critical reading of Daniel and His Father, rather than a personal-life report about the author.