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Senior Lecturer in Kurdish Studies University of Exeter

In his second novel, Balndakan,32 Nahayee applies a rather complicated narrative technique, which makes it quite difficult to be summarised. The novel is a parallel narration of two lives and destinies which are very similar and close to each other. In fact, one can say that both narrations are two aspects or two ways of narrating one and the same story. Both narrations look like a detailed re-description of the past times. Despite its highly literary and esthetical features this novel also carries a political mission. The two protagonists of the novel have been active politicians and after having been disappointed return to art, writing and painting, to re-describe the past, which is a way to change it:

It is clear that redescribing a world is the necessary first step towards changing it. And particularly at times when the State takes reality into its own hands, and sets about distorting it, altering the past to fit its present needs, then the making of the alternative realities of art, including the novel of memory, becomes politicized. 'The struggle of man against power,' Milan Kundera has written, 'is the struggle of memory against forgetting.' [?] And the novel is one way of denying the official, politicians' version of truth."33

The way of redescribing the world of this novel goes through the parallel narrations of the two main protagonists of the novel. One of the protagonists of the novel, Mehraban, who leaves Kurdistan, i.e. Iranian Kurdistan, a few years after the Iranian revolution in 1979, following the defeat of the military resistance of the Kurdish political parties against the newly established government, has now after several years of living outside Kurdistan returned to his city. He stays at his large paternal house which is now empty. His brother, Baram, wants to sell it to a Bank which wants to demolish the house. One night, Mehraban, who is a writer, dreams about a woman who has burned herself and is wandering about in a yard and in a small lane while she is burning to death. Mehraban who is trying to write a story is tempted by a subjective "I", which acts as the narrator of the story, in order to write a story about Farhad's life. Farhad who used to be a painter and university student many years ago loved a girl, Kale. Because of political activities he distances himself from Kale. Many years later on Farhad, aiming to draw Kale's portrait, suffers from the problem of amnesia. He lives now in a dark and damp room by himself and the signs, e.g. black walls, smoke, isolation, indicate that he smokes opium as a remedy to his pains. Mehraban avoids writing Farhad's story, but the subjective "I" insists in encouraging him to do the job. The subjective "I" who in fact acts as the author of the story makes Mehraban reconstruct Farhad's life based on his paintings. While Mehraban is writing this story, the narrator of the story, writes Mehraban's own life story. Mehraban in turn also loved a girl, Afsane, before leaving Kurdistan many years ago. He, like Farhad, also left Afsane because of his involvement in politics. After having been left by Mehraban, Afsane married another man, Naseri. Naseri harasses Afsane and suspected she was still in contact with Mehraban. Afsane, being unable to tolerate her husband's accusations, burns herself. Consequently Naseri gets mad.

In both narrations the protagonists, Mehraban and Farhad die. It is only the narrator of the story, the subjective "I" who is alive. In another word the other characters are the subjective creations of this subjective "I" who through following the lives of Mehraban and Farhad wants to rewrite the forgotten stories of a generation that was retired before getting old. For a country in which oppression is the main destiny of its subjects, one is accordingly deprived of participating in political and cultural life. If one goes against this 'norm' she/he is punished. In this country "in order to be retired you do not need necessarily be old" (p. 8).

In fact, memories occupy the entire world of this novel. However, "in this country nobody's story has been written" (p. 28). Thus, in order to put an end to this tradition, Mehraban starts writing. Memories should be preserved, and it is a way to invest in the cultural capital necessary for postulating an identity. Mehraban, who writes the life of Farhad, relies on these memories. At the same time he reads the memory books of those men who belonged to a generation who had wanted to change the world. That aim had cost them a lot. They had paid the price of that ideal by being imprisoned, tortured, and exiled. However, they had not succeeded. The only change had been their age. Having being afraid that they would be forgotten, they had written their memories.

Mehraban and Farhad represent a generation of Kurds who actively took part in the Iranian Revolution in hope of freedom and equality. A generation that could be identified by its ideological motives and could easily be distinguished by "a Chinese shirt, an American overcoat, a Stalin-like moustache, and a pair of simple and black framed glasses" (p. 15). Soon after the Revolution they are disappointed. Their destiny reflects the failure of the high ideals of a generation who never succeeded to provide themselves with an identity which could be defined in terms of nationality and belonging. The final stages of their lives show how disappointment, hopelessness and defeat become the main indications of their character. Afsane's and Kale's destiny and their tragic end indicate the regrettable conditions and fortunes endured by women in the time of "Birds with the Wind" or "the forgotten generation".

While in his two first novels Nahayee's main protagonists come back from exile to die at 'home', in his third novel, Halala, the protagonist leaves 'home' to die in exile.At the beginning of the novel we find Halala in a Swedish hospital where she is fighting death after having been stabbed by her husband, Sherzad. Through flashbacks and stream of consciousness the reader finds out about the details of her life. Halala is daughter to a Kurdish revolutionary man who has spent 15 years in Shah's prison in Iran before the Revolution. Mirza Hama Rashid Agha is released from prison at the time of the public uprising of the Iranians in 1978. The traditional tale of Mirkhunawk and Khatu Klawzer (Mirkhunawk and the Lady Golden Hat) is narrated parallel to the whole story. Mirkhunawk was a young man who lived in a city where the only source of the water was a spring that was controlled by demons. The king suggests that who ever liberates the spring will be rewarded with marriage to his daughter, Lady Golden Hat. Many young guys go to fight off the demons and are killed. Mirkhunawk has now gone to the war. In the novel Mirza Hama Rashid Agha has been made to resemble Mirkhunawk of his time (22). Stuart Hall believes that "[a] national culture is a discourse, a way to construct meanings which influence and organize both our actions and our perceptions of ourselves. National cultures construct identities by creating meanings of 'the nation', with which we can identify; these are contained in stories that are told about the nation, in memories which link its present to its past and in the perceptions of it that are constructed."34

Although there are no explicit references to the time and place of the story one can easily understand, through numerous allusions, the time and the place of the story. At the time of Mirza's arrest Halala was not yet born. After the revolution in Iran and following the clashes between the Kurds and the new Iranian regime, Mirza's family leaves the city and goes to a remote mountainous area where they live in a village. As the village is under the bombardment and attacks of the regime, Mirza's family go to Sulaymaniya in Iraqi Kurdistan while Mirza himself remains in the village where he is one of the cadres of a Kurdish political party. It is not mentioned which political party he works with, but through referring to Majid, Mirza's son, and his affiliation with a Marxist group, the reader who is familiar with the historical background of the Kurdish political parties in Iranian Kurdistan, understands that Mirza is a member of KDPI, i.e. Democrat Party of Iranian Kurdistan. Mirza's wife together with her children, hearing that Mirza has married to a young beautiful widow, return from Sulaymaniya to the same village that he lives in. Under the pressure of the children Mirza is obliged to divorce from his new wife, Rana. It is here in this village that the main organs of the party including its radio station are established. Halala starts to work at the radio station as a program producer. Alongside working in the radio station she gets familiar with a young boy, Braymok, who has a rather odd character. A young boy with simple clothes who carries a bag containing his flute, books and the basic shaving necessities. He introduces a programme on the Kurdish literature. Soon after their familiarisation Halala and Braymok produce the programme together. Braymok plays his flute as a part of the programme while Halala recites poems of the famous Kurdish poets. Braymok escaped from his city following being beaten by three policemen allegedly for persecuting a girl whom he loved unconditionally.

This article has also been published in:
'Contesting identities in the works of the Kurdish novelist Ata Nahayee' in Christine Allison, Anke Josten, et al. (eds.), From Daena to Din: Religion, Kultur und Sprache in der iranischen Welt, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009, pp. 265-282.