Fiction's function: on war's effect

Hossein Asgari's second novel subtly captures the fallout of violence in the Middle East, teasing out the relationship between truth and facts. By Michelle Hamadache

- Michelle Hamadache

Hossein Asgari's Desolation tells the story of Amin, an Iranian man whose life and family are shattered when the USS Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger plane in 1988.

The plane was carrying 290 passengers as well as crew, all of whom were killed. Among the dead was Amin's older brother, Hamid, a gifted mathematician who was travelling to an interview to enter a prestigious US university. Grief transforms Amin and his family; their lives are irrevocably shaped and reshaped in its wake.

In some respects, Desolation is a war story. The novel explores the far-reaching effects of the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, US meddling and violence in the Middle East, and the "war on terror". It boldly reimagines the events leading up to 11 September 2001.

The tragedy of the downed plane coincides with the discovery of teenage Amin's innocent yet forbidden romance with the girl across the road, the lively and sophisticated Parvaneh, whose family moved nearly 1,000km from Tehran to Mashhad to escape Iraqi missile attacks. Amin is seen sneaking out of the house by a neighbour. Under the theocracy of Ruhollah Khomeini, Amin's transgression risks flogging, but his secret courtship ends without punishment, in deference to the family's loss and the shocking way Hamid died.

Decades later, Amin seeks out an Iranian writer who works in a cafe in downtown Adelaide. He watches him so closely that the writer becomes rankled enough to consider confronting the stranger.

The writer has absolutely no desire to listen to, let alone write, the story that Amin is determined he should not only hear, but commit to the page. But Amin (a pseudonym he gives himself we never learn his real name) secures his audience with a ruse older than the Thousand and One Nights.