The merchant's house : the private and the public in the writing of home

This thesis has its origin in the 2009 presidential election in Iran, and the dispute that arose over the election results between the ruling party and the ordinary citizens of Iran. This agitation compelled me to revisit in my narratives the country that I had left twenty-seven years before in a similar setting of social unrest. My Doctor of Creative Arts (DCA) consists of the novel ‘The Merchant’s House’ and the cluster of socio-political essays which make up the exegesis, ‘Beginning Again’. The novel and the essays explore the journey, which began with my life before and immediately after the 1979 Revolution and continued up until my exile in Australia. In my political and social commentary on Iran I focus on the reasons why intellectuals of my generation who were involved in politics faced imprisonment and finally exile. The novel and the four essays which make up the exegesis are interconnected through the themes of memory, private and public life in contemporary Iran, and the search for the idea of home by which they are mutually informed. In the first essay of the exegesis, through the lens of a migrant vision, I review my definition of ‘the idea of home’, discussing my life as a political activist in Iran, and then my gradual shift from political activity towards science and literature after coming to Australia in 1988 as a refugee. In the second essay, I examine the significance of memory and its interplay with notions of the self, creativity and engagement with the form of the novel. The third essay involves a discussion on how and why the public and private lives of ordinary Iranians have changed since the 1979 Revolution. And finally in the last essay, I look at the difficulties and possibilities of formulating a position as someone who attempts to write in English as a second language. The novel, ‘The Merchant’s House’, is the story of the migration of two Azerbaijani sisters to Tehran for arranged marriages. The house referred to in the title is in Yousef Abad, the area where I grew up. The time span is from two years before the 1979 Revolution until 2009. During these years Iran’s monarchist regime was overthrown and the Islamic Republic of Iran came into being. The life of the main characters is altered by the revolution and the subsequent eight years of war between Iran and Iraq. The public and private lives of Iranians provide the fabric for the novel; the main theme of the novel is how the life of ordinary Iranians changed within this time span. The novel ends in 2009, the time of a disputed presidential election result. At the conclusion of the novel, two young characters, the son and daughter of the two sisters, are prevented from migrating to Australia; hence Australia remains for them as a utopian ideal