Narrative of Silent Fish

The Provinces Service of the Iran Book News Agency (IBNA) – Bahareh Hojjati: The short story collection ‘Fish Have Teeth’ by Maryam Mirzakhani, comprising 13 short stories, has recently been published by Ravie Publications. In this collection, the author portrays Kurdistan not as a ‘dramatic space’ but as a ‘living wound’; a wound layered upon the time, bodies, and souls of the characters.

Climatography: Geography as Destiny

The climate of Iranian Kurdistan has primarily been represented from two perspectives in Persian fiction over the past decades: first, myth-oriented and folkloric narratives; second, violence-centered representations of war and poverty. However, contemporary works, especially from the 90s onwards, have adopted a fresh approach where the climate is regarded not as a pictorial cliché, but as a ‘dramatic structure.’ The short story collection ‘Fish Have Teeth’ falls into this category. This work neither reproduces rural romanticism nor makes instrumental use of tragedy; instead, it transforms climate, war, and poverty into fundamental elements in shaping the characters’ worldview. The geography of Bijar is not merely a backdrop; it is the driving force of the narrative. It is a structural force that guides the actions and psyche of the characters. Tall mountains, arduous routes for kolbars (cross-border porters), the cold wind blowing across the plains, and the debris after bombings are all present in the text as ‘oppressive conditions.’ The author does not create metaphors from the climate; she writes the climate as an inevitability. The climatic features that are well dramatized in the collection are: first, the difficult path and mountain slope, symbolizing the characters’ fruitless ascent in life. Second, the bone-chilling cold that transforms into a tone: cold, firm, merciless. And third, scattered villages left in the heart of darkness. This climate keeps the narrative under constant pressure from beginning to end.

War and Chemical Bombing: Buried but Living Collective Memory, Trauma Narrative

The experience of war and chemical attacks in Kurdistan is a significant part of the region’s collective memory. Some stories in the collection directly represent this experience, while others show its long-term consequences in the lives of kolbars and workers. According to the ‘Trauma Narrative’ theory, collective trauma usually appears indirectly and fragmented in narratives; this also happens in this collection. War is represented not through epic imagery, but through its physical and psychological impacts, such as skin burns, respiratory disorders, and family disintegration. This type of representation aligns with works of Kurdish literature about Halabja (such as the works of Bakhtiar Ali) and creates a shared discourse about the ‘injured body’ in war-torn areas. Azizkhani does not write simply; she does not fall into the cliché of ‘national tragedy.’ War in this collection is not a historical event, but an ongoing destiny.

Three Important Features in the Representation of War

• A) Elimination of Hero-Making: No one is a ‘hero.’ The people are children, elderly women, workers, and kolbars. They are always the first victims and the last to be heard.
• B) Portrayal of Injured Bodies: Bodies in this collection are places where history is recorded: skins that burn, lungs that fail, eyes that blur. This choice allows history to reach the body; instead of linear narratives.
• C) Post-War Continuity: Even stories about kolbari or labor have a ‘post-war’ theme. It is as if the war has not ended, only its form has changed; from crushing bombs to poverty, unemployment, and silent deaths.

Kolbari and the Working Class: Tragedy Without a Cry

Kolbari (cross-border porterage) is considered a type of ‘marginal labor within a centralized power structure’ in Iranian anthropological studies. For example, the kolbar in the story ‘Snow,’ the first story in this collection, is not a symbol; he is a human, with bones that experience ‘heaviness.’ The narrative of kolbari does not preach slogans and avoids social posturing. Azizkhani makes class pressure palpable through the tiniest physical details: balance on ice, the sound of breath, the spring of pain in the knee. The same approach is seen in the narratives of workers. The Kurdistan worker in this collection lacks a radical voice or bargaining power. He is on the periphery of the economy, and marginalization in the narratives has transformed into a form: short, condensed stories, full of pauses. In other words, the working class of Kurdistan in this collection has neither a powerful voice, nor an opportunity to protest, nor the possibility of escape, nor an accessible dream. Being silent is a conscious and painful choice. The author does not want to create a romantic image of them; she wants their ‘remaining silent’ to be the main scream itself.

Language; Poetic but Unflinching and Beauty Under the Blade

The language is poetic, but not of exaggeration and embellishment. Poeticism here is the result of precise observation, not linguistic play. Instead of grandiloquent sentences, Azizkhani uses miniature scene-setting, local idioms, and long pauses. Imagery is formed with local elements like stone, snow, smoke, the sound of whistling wind… The poeticism is controlled. The language is evocative but never romantic. The rhythm is slow and pounding. The tone resembles a kolbar walking on a mountain slope; heavy, measured, inevitable. Several stories are dialogue-driven, and the conversations also carry the rhythm of the region; short, direct, sometimes clipped, sometimes just a few dry words.

Within the framework of Jakobson’s theory of poetic language, this type of language highlights the axis of selection and semantic organization; however, the author maintains balance and does not allow poeticism to turn into sentimentality. The language is ‘the beauty of resistance’; a language that stands against the silence of the climate but does not permit shouting.

Theory of Silence and Wound: The Hidden Core of the Collection

In most stories, the characters are taciturn; this silence is partly a part of the identity of southwestern Kurdistan, and partly a shared wound. Silence in this collection is not anti-narrative. It is anti-shouting. Silence transforms into the ‘underlying music’ of the stories; a heavy music that forces the reader to interpret the wound themselves.

Structure and Form: Short but High-Pressure Narratives

The structure of the stories usually rests on three pillars: being situation-centric, the constant presence of threat, and semi-burnt endings. The endings are distinctly open, but not aimlessly; rather, of the type ‘life continues, but not in the way we want.’ In stories related to chemical bombing, for example, the story ‘On the Second Step,’ the form is even more condensed and breathtaking; sentences are shorter, the atmosphere darker, and the rhythm more anxious. However, sometimes the intensity of suffering can throw the reader off balance; sometimes the narrative needs a breathing point.

Final Word

The short story collection ‘Fish Have Teeth,’ considering its elements of climatography, representation of war and chemical bombing, explanation of structural violence against kolbars and workers, and its use of poetic and condensed language, falls into the category of important works of Iranian regional literature. The central strengths of the book include its bold and honest portrayal of silent victims, precise and controlled poetic language, ability to create emotional pressure without exaggeration, climatography as drama rather than embellishment, and characterization without clichés or victimhood. This work is not only a literary document of the lives of the people of Kurdistan after the war but also demonstrates at the formal level how heavy historical experiences can be reconstructed using short narratives.

‘Fish Have Teeth’ is not a geographical narrative; it is a narrative of human survival at the common border of war, poverty, and destiny. It neither praises nature nor romanticizes poverty. The stories emerge from the heart of a wounded land, with a poetic language that does not seek to beautify the wound, but only to keep the truth bare. In this collection, the war has not ended, the bombing is still in the air, the mountain is still heavy, the kolbar is still going, and the fish, even if they have no teeth, can still continue to swallow.