سیروس امیری

This study is a reading of Anita Amirrezvani's The Blood of Flowers and Equal of the Sun in terms of Hayden White's notions of emplotment and narrativity. Through analysis of Amirrezvani's treatment of real historical events, the study raises several questions regarding the historical truth of the presented events, the author's role and purpose in reshaping the past, and the effects of contemporary discourses on Iran's past and present on the narratives. In an attempt to rewrite history, Amirrezvani deviates from official historical records and invents stories about those parts of history that have been marginalized or written out of historical narratives. Amirrezvani has depicted many characters, events, and situations, many of which familiar to us from official records of history, but she mixes these real elements with many imaginary elements, and subjects them to a process of emplotment to support her own reading of Iran's past. This process of emplotment has been worked out through techniques such as selection, insertion, dramatization and novelization. The results of the study show that Amirrezvani's main project in her two novels has been to read Iran's past in terms of the current debates on Iran, especially the place of women in the Iranian society, Amirrezvani articulates some of the dominant contemporary discourses on Iran and accordingly rewrites Iran's past history in a way to make it appealing to contemporary audiences.