Being multi-faceted, violence is hard to define and distinguish. Sometimes it is overt like raid, confiscation and beating; sometimes it is subtle, covert and soft. Some consider an experience as violent, while others understand that very experience in a different way. Here is a story of two novelists and their books. One has experienced violence with his soul, psyche and his skin and flesh, and the other experienced it in the form of a restless mind in a more subtle way.
Reza Baraheni and Scott Symons were born almost in the same year, and both wrote their first novels in the same period. One wrote one of Canada’s first homosexual novels, and the other authored the first modern Iranian novel with homosexual themes and references. They had similar political concerns and were engaged in similar literary activities besides story writing. Both have gained a prominent reputation in their society’s intellectual circles, although they were finally forced to abandon their homelands.
Continue reading “Utopia is Somewhere Else”
