1. “Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār: Manifast-i siyāsī adabī-yi Āqā-yi Gulshīrī” an article by ^ᶜAli Ashraf Davishiyan and Reza Khandan (Mahabadi) is one such example. The writers begin with the assumption that Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār is dealing with socio-political issues; therefore, with no attention paid to the “literary issues” of this work, they identify the author with the narrator and then write a political criticism of Golshiri.

2. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār (Tehran, 1993) 19-24.

3. Creative writing—and its secondary repercussions—is one of the important subjects in this novel and requires a separate discussion.

4. Barahani, Reza “Golshiri va Shegerd-e no dar Ravayat”, Takāpū, no. 3, 1372 (1993), 74-75Google Scholar.

5. For example see: Collins, Bradford R. (ed.), Twelve Views of Manet's “Bar”, Princeton: 1996, and “How Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère Is Reconstructed”, Thierry de Duve, Critical Inquiry, Volume 25, no. 1, 136-68Google Scholar.

6. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār, 14, 130.

7. Ibid., 32, 45.

8. Ibid, 6.

9. Ibid.

10. The use of the word “reality” leaves something to be desired because the discussion concerns the problematization of reality and its instability, and use of this term might imply tacit confirmation of the existence of an unchangeable, static reality.

11. In the novel this is explicitly referred to when the narrator talks about his story: “I don't remember now whether or not there really was a pomegranate, but I still think those stains are necessary; with these few red drops. For our little boy this event has reached an inevitable end, whether in reality he sees her or not.” (28)

12. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār (folding mirrors), literally means mirrors with doors.

13. One of the scenes which clearly refers to the metaphoric value of the mirror takes place when the narrator presents the mirror—which has been given to him by his current wife, Mina—to Sanam Banu. Sanam Banu shows no particular reaction, and when asked “Don't you like it?” she says: “Oh, yes, but this mirror is not really just a mirror. Do you remember?” (129).

14. For the complete discussion, see Barthes, Roland Essais Critiques, (Paris, 1964), 138-42Google Scholar.

15. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār, 6.

16. “Hugo, Alienation, and La Fin De Satan” (Ph.D. diss., Austin: University of Texas, 1996).

17. This concept (Satan) is still very active and dynamic, especially in the political discourse in Iran. One of the famous recent examples which employs this concept in its positive sense is “Rahā shudan-i shayāṭīn, dar butri kardan-e ghūl-hā,” ^ᶜAṣr-i Āzadagān, no. 35, 1378 (1999): 1, by the imprisoned journalist Akbar Ganji.

18. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār, 7.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., 21, my emphasis.

21. Ibid., my emphasis.

22. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār, 6-8.

23. Ibid., 14–15.

24. Books such as Az Ṣabā tā Nīmā, and Dāstān-i adabiyyāt va sarguzasht-i Ijtimā^ᶜ, sāl-hā yi 1300-1315 give a general idea of these works.

25. Indeed, it is necessary to point out that when we are talking about absolutism we do not mean the absolute dependence on a specific ideology, but absolute dependence on the ensemble of traditional aesthetic criteria which were constructed within the dualistic structure.

26. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār, 158.

27. There have been writers who, without having had an actual exilic experience, have identified their conditions “at home” as a form of exile, thus establishing a kinship between themselves and “ the Prince of Exile”. This approach obviously requires a more inclusive definition of exile and examines issues beyond the scope of this study.

28. This is the subtitle of Edward Said's article: “The Mind of Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile” Harper's 269, n. 1612 (1984): 49-55.

29. Said, “The Mind, of Winter,” 49.

30. Ibid., 51.

31. According to Knapp, Exile and the Writer (University Park, PA, 1990)Google Scholar,

“Exoteric exile, whether voluntary or involuntary, may be identified, though not always necessarily so, with extroverted behavioral patterns. Discussing such patterns, C. G. Jung wrote: ‘When the orientation to the object and objective facts is so predominant that the most frequent and essential decisions and actions are determined, not by subjective values but by objective relations, one speaks of an extroverted attitude’ (Collected Works, 6: 416). An extroverted mode of psychic functioning implies that meaning, value, and interest are applied mostly to the external objects rather than to inner subjective matters. (1)… Esoteric or private exile suggests a withdrawal on the part of individuals from the empirical realm and a desire or need to live predominantly in their inner world . (2)

32. Examples of individuals and even of communities trying to avoid the unfamiliar segments of the host societies are numerous. At times, however, attempts to protect the artificial identity go beyond simple expressions of illusory hopes of return and take exaggerated forms. For instance, many exiles and on occasion even immigrants, fearing the loss of the tranquility of their artificially-created past, even avoid learning the language of the host society. One famous example of this last is Victor Hugo, who spent twenty years in exile in England and deliberately avoided learning English.

33. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār, 25.

34. Ibid., 130, 135–36.

35. Ibid., 103, 130.

36. Replying to the narrator's praise for her cooking, Sanam Banu says: “For two years this was my job at a restaurant. Whenever these respectable exiles missed their country they came there.” (111)

37. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār, 94.

38. Ibid., 102.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid., 103.

41. Ibid., 130–31.

42. Two famous places in a poor neighborhood in Tehran.

43. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār, 103.

44. Ibid., 131.

45. “A fourteen-year-old with a long neck and a sore pimple on his nostril, and his alter ego on the fifth floor of a building in the aristocratic neighborhood of “Angen Leben”, staring at a finger that had no ring, and now here he was … . A folding mirror that keeps these three behind its doors.” (144) Concerning the relationship between the folding mirror and the desire to stabilize the time (attachment to the past), the narrator on another occasion refers to his wife (Mina) who had said about the folding mirror: “when one closes both leaves, one is content that her image remains intact behind those doors.” (73)

46. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār, 151.

47. Bienek, Horst “Exile is Rebellion”, in Literature in Exile, (Durham, 1990), 44Google Scholar.

48. “Hugo, Alienation, and La Fin De Satan.”

49. Baudelaire should be mentioned here because, by using the phrase “Prince de l'exil” in his famous poem “Les Litanies de Satan,” he proclaimed the decisive transformation of Satan.

50. In regard to the relationship of Satan and writers, it is interesting to note a German legend which explains the banishment of Satan in a completely different way. According to this legend, when Satan was asked about the incident, he said: “I wanted to become a writer!” Of course this satanic response refers to the point that during the Middle Ages and even one or two centuries afterwards, being involved in literary activities was not considered respectable, to the point that members of the nobility usually tried to prevent their children from choosing this field as their profession. From Rudwin, Maximilian The Devil in Legend and Literature (Chicago, 1931), 8Google Scholar.

51. Āyinah-hā-yi Dardār, 131–32.

52. Ibid., 151.