Story · Baang · earlier Iranboom appearance
The Hollow
English finding-aid title for a Persian text; not a published English translation title.
A dead soldier speaks from the place where he was buried, imagining recognition by those who think he has disappeared.
- Author
- Ghazi Rabihavi
- Publication
- Baang · earlier Iranboom appearance
- Source date
- 14 March 2023 · earlier appearance 2012
- Published language
- Persian
- This page
- English publication guide
English editorial orientation to the named source. The literary text remains with its original publication.
Reading orientation
The speaker has died but cannot make his death known. His family and Zari believe he has vanished; from beneath the earth he imagines the memorial that would give his disappearance a public name. The trench is both the place of death and the position from which he addresses the living. Source 2
The narration moves between war and an earlier life of work, family and bodily injury. The hollow is not only the grave: the wounded eye gives the title another material presence. Read the desire for recognition alongside the intimate audience the speaker keeps imagining. Source 2
Publication and language
The main Persian link is Baang’s 14 March 2023 appearance. Iranboom carries an earlier page dated 8 July 2012, and a blog republishes the story. The Swedish Hålan explicitly identifies Hofre as its source; that published translation has a separate credit and record. Source 1 · Source 3
Before the unrecognised death
Qasem’s address to Zari carries a history of work, bodily shame and forced obedience. Employers deny the smell in the workshops when another boy asks for ventilation, and Qasem joins their denial. At home, his stepfather beats him into using the title father. A later theft forced on him by that man leaves another injury he cannot explain truthfully to his mother. Source 4
The lost eye also shapes his relationship with Zari. He remembers giving her a handmade chain and later watching her mourn Abbas beside a decorated memorial. The memorial’s mirrors multiply his own damaged face without giving him the recognition Abbas receives. His determination to enlist grows within that comparison, making public honour part of a deeply private wish to be seen. Source 4
The encounter told again
The final account reverses the opening encounter. Qasem now stands over a soldier in a trench, sees a single eye and a wound where the other should be, and fires before the man can respond. The gestures repeat the scene in which the narrator described being killed. Reader and speaker are left within a disturbing doubling, where the division between the self who suffers and the enemy he destroys cannot remain secure. Source 4
Sources & credits
- The Hollow · publication
Baang · earlier Iranboom appearance. 14 March 2023 · earlier appearance 2012. Persian. By Ghazi Rabihavi.
- The Hollow · reading evidence
A dead soldier speaks from the place where he was buried, imagining recognition by those who think he has disappeared. The website paragraphs are editorial orientation to this source.
- The Hollow · Iranboom
Earlier Persian appearance dated 8 July 2012. HTTP and HTTPS addresses identify the same item; a separate blog also republishes the story.
- The Hollow · extended reading evidence
Baang, 14 March 2023. Original source 300, complete fiction 77–251; dossier caption139 excluded; source footnote 254 identifies From This Place, Mina, first printing 1369. The reversal is described as literary form rather than a historical account of combat. The website sections are original English editorial orientations; literary passages are not reproduced.