Generation of Narrative; Removal of Dystopia/Living with (Dys)topia: The Last Pomegranate of the World (2002) and The Time of Negligence (2004)
Abstract:
Both the postmodern novels The Last Pomegranate of the World (2002) written by Bachtyar Ali, an Iraqi Kurdish writer, and The Time of Negligence (2004) by Mohammad Reza Kateb have a dystopian space. During those years, Iran was in a state of transition from the Khatami presidency to Ahmadinejad, and Iraq was going through the last years of Saddam's rule. In order to investigate the pervasive state of dystopia, we went to the utopian openings of the main characters and studied the novels from the window of the possibility of getting rid of dystopia. Due to the complex conditions of the Middle East, the duplicated or integrated characters have unattainable utopias that cannot exist due to reification, privatization, etc. Depending on the situation, opium (a kind of story here) and promises are ideological/utopian paths in which the characters are emploted. Bachtyar's praised promises are hopeful for the removal of dystopia, and Kateb's blamed opium provide the possibility of coexistence with it. In this way, utopia reveals ideology and emancipatory literature predicts the future by inserting the reality structure into the novel structure.