Hedayat’s rebellious child: multicultural rewriting of The Blind Owl in Porochista Khakpour’s Sons and Other Flammable Objects

Abstract

ABSTRACT Divided along several ethnic, linguistic and religious lines, Iran is a multicultural country and the question of its national identity has been a matter of dispute since the beginning of the last century. Part of this dispute has been going on in literary works by national and diasporic authors. In this paper, Porochista Khakpour’s Sons and Other Flammable Objects has been read in terms of its contribution to the questions of nationalism and national identity famously addressed in Sadegh Hedayat’s The Blind Owl. It seems that Khakpour has modelled her debut novel on Hedayat’s magnum opus as an effective way to join the debate. Focusing on Khakpour’s narrative, this study demonstrates how the novel presents a multicultural narrative of national identity in response to what is sometimes considered as Hedayat’s ethnocentric nationalism in The Blind Owl.