David

Reading orientation

The censor addresses his superior with exaggerated respect while describing what people must not read, see or hear. Ordinary details, including the arrangement of seats on a bus, become objects of regulation. His own fascination with art keeps disturbing the certainty of his official vocabulary. Source 2

The monologue makes censorship audible as a habit of thinking, not only a prohibition issued from outside a text. The sculpture of David gives the title a particular artistic referent. Notice how the speaker’s desire to demonstrate loyalty competes with the ruler’s apparent inattention. Source 2

Publication and language

Baang publishes the Persian story on 22 July 2022 with Rabihavi’s retrospective account of earlier publication. taz carries David in German on 7 May 1997; its translator is unnamed. Avaye Tabeid 10 also prints Davud, but its cover and inner masthead disagree on the seasonal year. Source 1 · Source 3 · Source 4

Censoring what has not been made

The censor’s objections widen from public seating and bodily visibility to the possibility of creation itself. Destroying finished work is insufficient if somebody may find it in a bin. He therefore imagines suppressing the artist before anything reaches the page. The satire carries censorship beyond correction into a wish to prevent an image from existing. Source 5

The same official later searches with a lantern among what has been discarded. His private attention to the forbidden images disturbs the certainty of his public judgments. At the end, the ruler he addresses is snoring. The long performance of loyalty has taken place before a listener who is not even awake. Source 5

The risk of printing the story

Rabihavi’s introduction recalls rejection by journals before Mansour Koushan accepted the story for Takapu. He connects that appearance with the magazine’s final issue and remembers the risk Koushan took. The introduction gives the satire a publishing history in the author’s own voice, alongside its separate Tehran dateline of 1372. Source 5

A later collective appearance

The first Khodkameh Story Miscellany prints David on pages 21–23. Its original imprint names Mohammad Hayati and Hamed Hayati as the supervisors and gives Spring 1404 and first printing 1404. The story still ends with its separate Tehran 1372 dateline. This is another documented appearance of the named work, with the anthology’s publication date kept apart from its composition marker. Source 6

Sources & credits

1. David · publication

   Baang · taz. 22 July 2022 · German appearance 7 May 1997. Persian · also published in German. By Ghazi Rabihavi. The German newspaper page does not name a translator.

2. David · reading evidence

   A censor’s deferential report to a ruler turns restrictions on art into an increasingly elaborate monologue. The website paragraphs are editorial orientation to this source.

3. David · taz

   German story published 7 May 1997 under Rabihavi’s name. The inspected newspaper text names no translator.

4. Davud · Avaye Tabeid 10

   Persian story on printed pages 41-42. A Spring 1397 cover conflicts with the Summer 1397 (2019) masthead. Faraj Sarkohi’s separate criticism is not authored by Rabihavi.

5. David · Persian story · extended reading evidence

   Baang, 22 July 2022. Original source 311: authored publication recollection 77; complete satire79–109; Tehran 1372 dateline 111. The claim about Takapu’s final issue is attributed to the author’s recollection rather than treated as independently established causation. The website sections are original English editorial orientations; literary passages are not reproduced.

6. Khodkameh Story Miscellany 1 · original imprint, contents and David

   The provider’s free-download form supplied the inspected 166-page PDF. Imprint PDF page 5: Khodkameh, supervised by Mohammad Hayati and Hamed Hayati, Spring 1404, first printing 1404. Contents PDF page 6: David by Ghazi Rabihavi. Complete story printed pages 21–23 / PDF pages 22–24; composition dateline Tehran 1372 at its end. No ISBN or place is printed on the inspected imprint. The volume and cover are kept with the originating provider; the website supplies an original English publication orientation.