Amir Moosavi, "Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Summary

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Podcast Episode Summary:

New Books Network — Interview with Amir Moosavi
Episode: “Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War”
Date: September 14, 2025
Host: Tirul Mende
Guest: Professor Amir Moosavi (Rutgers University, author of "Dust That Never Settles")

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Overview: Main Theme and Purpose

In this episode, Tirul Mende interviews Professor Amir Moosavi about his newly published book Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War (Stanford UP, 2025). The conversation explores the book’s examination of how Arabic and Persian literature has engaged with, responded to, and been shaped by the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), tracing these “literary afterlives” through multiple decades. Moosavi discusses the persistent metaphor of “dust,” the evolving nature of war literature in both countries, and comparative approaches to modern Middle Eastern fiction.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Author Background & Genesis of the Book

• Academic Crossroads:
  • Moosavi is based at Rutgers University, working on “Arabic and Persian literatures, modern and contemporary, and mostly in fiction.” [02:15]
  • The book’s genesis: merging Arabic and Persian studies, which are “usually studied separately and not in conversation with each other.” [03:03]

2. The Significance of the Title

• Why ‘Dust That Never Settles’?

  • The metaphor of dust is drawn from both literary and visual cultures of the Iran-Iraq War—particularly prevalent in wartime photography and fiction.
  • “Dust is something that is...very much all over the place in those photos.... when we read the fiction...you can kind of viscerally feel it when you read their books, of course, dust sticks to you.” (Moosavi, [04:48])
  • The “dust that never settles” refers both literally to the constant presence of dust in the war’s landscapes, and metaphorically to memories and traumas that remain unsettled decades later.

• On “Literary Afterlives”:

  • While “afterlives” is now a popular phrase, here it refers to “the way that writers have continued to treat this war in the years after it ended.... writers are continuing to bring it up.... it’s having another life after the actual war has ended.” (Moosavi, [04:48])

3. Scope and Timeframe

• Chronological Span:

  • The book covers works from 1980 (start of the war) through 2018—a period long enough to “divide the literature of this war in, into two periods at least: wartime and post-war.” (Moosavi, [09:12])
  • Wartime literature (1980–88): mainly state-sponsored, written in service of the state, “not very good...mostly written in the service of the state.”
  • Post-war literature: more diverse, critical, reflective, and influential.

• Notable Works Marking the Endpoint:

  • Novels such as Nassim Marashi’s Haras and Diya Jubeili’s There’s No Windmills in Basra signaled a fruitful moment to conclude the study.

4. Concepts: Eltizam & State Power

• Eltizam (or ta'ahud): Literature of Political Commitment
  • “Translations essentially of the idea of engaged literature or committed literatures.... The politically engaged, politically committed to support the working classes, the oppressed and such.” ([12:22])
  • Both the Islamic Republic of Iran and Ba'athist Iraq co-opted this concept post-1979, redefining it as a commitment to the state project and war effort, especially after the war’s outbreak in 1980:
    • “Both countries...dumped tons of money and resources into creating a state literature, into creating a state war culture.”
    • Commitment was now equated with allegiance to the state’s aims.

5. Comparative Literary Landscapes: Iraq vs. Iran

• Visibility and Audience:

  • Iraqi authors such as Ahmed Saadawi (Frankenstein in Baghdad) and Sinan Antoon (The Corpse Washer, I'jaam)—part of a “post-2003 wave” benefiting from international translation and recognition—generally reach a wider audience than their Iranian contemporaries. ([17:43])

• State Influence and Creative Freedom:

  • “Iranian writers are simultaneously dealing with [state control]...along with the difficulty in finding translators and publishing houses to publish them on the outside.... There’s a very big difference between writers on both sides now in terms of the audience.” (Moosavi, [17:43])

• Themes and Temporalities:

  • Iraqi postwar literature frames national history by recurring cycles of war:
    • “Among Iraqi writers, there tends to be this conception of time that's dictated by different wars.”
    • Even novels not “about” the Iran-Iraq War, such as Frankenstein in Baghdad, are haunted by it; the war permeates characters’ histories and the city’s psychic landscape.

6. Authorial Approach and Study Boundaries

• Scope Limitations:

  • "This is not an encyclopedic study.... I stuck to...biggest names on both sides in terms of writers of fiction.... [and] common thematic engagement with the war chronologically running parallel.” ([23:01])

• Comparative Method:

  • Moosavi works with notable writers from both Iran and Iraq, focusing on how war literature evolved: mourning and grief on the home front, rebellious ex-combatant writers, and critical engagements with state narratives.

7. Looking Forward: Future Scholarly Directions

• Evolving Interests:
  • Moosavi plans to “leave behind” the Iran-Iraq War for now, turning toward:
    • “The long 1980s,” tracing regional and global upheavals (Iranian Revolution, Saddam’s ascension, Afghan War, etc.), examining how writers process and narrate this era ([26:21]).
    • Ecocritical approaches: “how writers, artists are dealing with the ecological disaster that has struck this part of the world...soaring temperatures and a lack of water and war-based pollutions and pollutants.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Persistence of War’s Impact:

  • “The dust of this war, I think, is something that many writers have never been able to shake off, and I think many people from both of the countries that were involved have been unable to completely shake off.” (Moosavi, [04:48])

• On the Limitations of Wartime Literature:

  • “There was, of course, a wartime literature, and I think like most wartime literatures, it was not very good.... mostly written in the service of the state.” (Moosavi, [08:45])

• On State Appropriation of Commitment:

  • “The idea of commitment at that moment was redefined to be committed to the causes of the states. And both states were kind of able to silence dissents and kind of, you know, dominate the entire discourse around politics generally. But the war, especially at that moment, commitment being one of those causes....” (Moosavi, [12:22])

• On the Challenge of Comparative Study:

  • “Really, the biggest challenge was...limiting out of this huge, huge body of work to create a coherent story where both sides are...writing about the similar experience of having fought in this war, but in a way that we can use a comparative perspective to illuminate what's going on on both sides.” (Moosavi, [23:01])

• On Future Projects:

  • “I'm very much interested in...the 1980s or what we can call the kind of long 1980s...and how writers have gone back and treated that...highly important period.... The second thing...is ecocritical approaches to this region...how writers, artists are dealing with the ecological disaster that has struck this part of the world....” (Moosavi, [26:21])

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Important Timestamps

• 02:15 – Moosavi’s current position and research focus
• 03:03 – Genesis of the book and integrating Arabic/Persian literary studies
• 04:48 – Meaning behind the title and metaphor of dust
• 09:04 – Choosing the 1980–2018 timeframe; differences between wartime and postwar literatures
• 12:22 – Explaining the concept of iltizam / ta’ahud (committed literature)
• 17:43 – Compare/contrast: Iraqi vs. Iranian postwar literature; discussion of Ahmed Saadawi, Sinan Antoon
• 23:01 – Methodological challenges and author’s selection process
• 26:21 – Moosavi’s next research directions

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Conclusion

This episode offers a nuanced exploration of how the Iran-Iraq War continues to “raise dust” in the region’s literature, societies, and memory. With an eye for comparison and a careful sense of literary and political nuance, Amir Moosavi charts the evolving legacy of the war in the Arab and Persian literary imaginations, while considering broader questions of state power, trauma, and transnational cultural history.

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Transcript

[Amir Mousavi]

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[Tirul Mende]

Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello everybody, and welcome back to New Books in Middle Eastern Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm Tirul Mende, the host of the channel. Today we'll be talking to Professor Amir Mousavi about his new book, Dust that Never Settles, Literary Afterlives of the Iran Iraq War, which was published with Stanford University Press earlier this year. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today, Amir.

[Amir Mousavi]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to you.

[Tirul Mende]

And maybe we can start with a little introduction that you tell us where you are based right now and what your current fields of interests are, basically.

[Amir Mousavi]

Sure. I'm based career wise at Rutgers University in Newark. I'm in the Department of English there, but I work on Arabic and Persian literatures, modern and contemporary, and mostly in fiction. So, yeah, I'm speaking to you from the Newark area, from New York City where I live, but I'm based in New Jersey across the river.

[Tirul Mende]

Thank you so much. And as usual, with all these academic books, it takes like a long time that it gets published. Can you remember when Dusta Narra Settles became a reality for you as a book project? And why did you wanted to focus especially on the Iran Iraq War?

[Amir Mousavi]

Yeah, sure. I mean, I did my graduate studies in Arabic and Persian literatures, basically between Middle Eastern Studies and Comparative Literature at NYU at New York University in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. This book comes out of that experience of being there and out of wanting to both study Arabic and Persian and bring them together somehow. And with time, you know, seeing what my, what my academic interests were or my scholarly interests were and the period that I was interested in the geographies and peoples, this book kind of came. Came to light in some ways the topic at least. So it was, you know, it's. It's out of a. Out of an experience of bringing, bringing together Arabic and Persian, which are oftentimes studied separately, usually studied separately and not in conversation with each other. And in my general interest in kind of late 20th century, early 21st century peoples and cultures of the Middle east, whether it's Iran or Iraq or the Eastern Mediterranean.

[Tirul Mende]

Thank you so much. And I found the title of the book quite engaging as well. Can you maybe explain what you mean by Dust that never Settles, how it connects to the book and literary afterlives? Because I think other books use this phrase sometimes as well. So can you explain how you came with this title?

[Amir Mousavi]

Sure. Afterlives, I think is a little. Maybe if I were to rename the book, I would not have Afterlives in it now because it's kind of just look up afterlives and you'll find that there are many afterlives of many things these days. But when I was coming up with the title of the book, it made sense and it still does make a lot of sense in my opinion. Dust in the first part, Dust that Never Settles. The image of dust is one that came to mind immediately when I started thinking about titles for this book. It's a recurring theme in both the literary and visual cultures of both sides of this war, in fact. And if you're at all familiar with like the photography of the war, especially with the work. And I'm thinking of people like Alfred Yaakovzadeh or Kaveh Golestan, 2 Iranian. Kaveh Golestan, who has passed away quite some time over 20 years ago at this point, but very famous Iranian photographers who made a, you know, didn't make their name completely, but certainly became famous for. Partly famous for Their photos of the Iran Iraq war. Dust is something that is. Is very much all over the place in those photos. A lot of the fighting, not all of it, of course, but a lot of the fighting in the war took place in these very dry regions between the two countries, kind of no man's land areas where that. That became killing fields throughout the 1980s. And so the images that we see of the war, many of them are very dusty. And when we read the fiction, and I'm thinking about some of the things that I wrote about, some of the works that I wrote about in the book, novels by, say, Hossein Mortazaion, Ab Kenar or Janan Jass and Halawi, and they treat these areas, and you can kind of viscerally feel it when you, you know, when you read their books, of course, dust sticks to you. And so dust, whether it's the literal dust of combat or having experienced the war from the home front, or the war front or the home front, or the kind of metaphoric dust of having the memories of this war spoken about constantly around you, was something that I had in mind. And of course, we talk about when the dust settles. And. And, you know, it's an idiomatic expression in English. The dust of this war, I think, is something that many writers have never been able to shake off, and I think many people from both of the countries that were involved have been unable to completely shake off. And so I saw it as the dust that never settles. Literary afterlives, of course, to get to this. This word that is used constantly to talk about all sorts of things, really. But I was referring to the way that writers have continued to treat this war in the years after it ended. So it's now been, as of right now, it's been 37 years since the war ended. It's been almost 40 years. And writers are continuing to bring it up. Maybe not as much as wartime, not as much as in the 90s or in the early part of the 21st century, but it still reoccurs and it's having another life, I think, after the actual war has ended. There was, of course, a wartime literature, and I think like most wartime literatures, it was not very good. I make that point explicit in the book as well. It was mostly written in the service of the state. And then in the aftermath of the war, war was taken up by writers from both sides. And these, you know, engagements with the war are really the things that I see as the literary afterlives of this conflict.

[Tirul Mende]

Okay. And the Time frame that you look in the book is like from 1980 up until 2018. And why did you use this kind of long space or time frame.

[Amir Mousavi]

In.

[Tirul Mende]

Order to look at these different literary outcomes about the Iran Iraq? Why this long period?

[Amir Mousavi]

Sure. Well, I mean, it partly has to do with the fact that I had to start writing the book at some point and stop looking at new things at some point. And so 2018, being three decades after the end of the war, was, was convenient in that regard. We can divide, I think the literature of this war in, into two periods at least, and maybe other people will, will say more, but you know, eventually. But I think wartime and post war period are quite distinct periods of engagement with the war itself. Right. And so from 1980 to 1988, which was the time of the Iran Iraq War, you know, you had a particular type of literature, mainly a state sponsored literature written on both sides of the conflict. And afterwards we've had writers returning over and over to that war and returning to it largely on the Iraqi side as one episode of violence that has afflicted the country over the, you know, over the decades since, well, since especially 1980, but even since before that time and in the Iranian context, it's I think, increasingly being periodized as a moment in this kind of post revolutionary moment that has had all sorts of, you know, effects on life and society, politics in Iran afterwards. So I had to end the book at some point. And if you write about modern contemporary topics in particular, I think you just have to make a decision if it's something that keeps going on. In my case, 2018 was the time that I stopped and fortuitously there were several, I think, quite high profile publications that came out around that year. So looking at, for example, Nassim Marashi's novel Haras in Persian, that's that was released shortly before that moment. Diya Jubeili's Basra there's no Windmills in Basra also came out shortly before that. And so it was, it's kind of marked a. It was a convenient moment as well to end the book. Of course there will be more engagements with this war. There has been since 2018 in literary works or in cinema or in the visual arts. And that's for someone else to take up.

[Tirul Mende]

Thank you. And I remember that in the introduction you wrote about some concepts like eltizam, for example. And can you explain how this concept can be applied to the Iran Iraq context and what it means for those who don't know the word iltizan?

[Amir Mousavi]

Sure. So the concept of iltezam or ta hod in Persian, so iltezam in Arabic, ta' ahud in Persian is a. Are translations essentially of the idea of, of engaged literature or committed literatures that were, you know, the politically, politically engaged, politically committed to, you know, support the, The. The. The working classes, the. The oppressed and such. These were concepts that were really big in, in, you know, the mid 20th century in, you know, across, I would say, Southwest Asia. And there are, you know, other people have written about this more directly in the period that I am not dealing with, but that I kind of nod towards in the introduction of the book. Somebody like, say, Levi Thompson, whose book on Iran and Iraq, Iraqi poetry in the mid 20th century, is really useful in this regard. So ibtazam as a concept among writers and readers was, Was widespread, accepted, and something that, you know, you would find very commonplace up through the 1960s in both countries and even into the 70s somehow. So as a concept, it was there kind of in the air when both of these governments came to power in 1979, that is to say, the Islamic Republic of Iran after the revolution, Saddam Hussein after his complete takeover of the Iraqi government and the Ba'ath party in the same year, were able to kind of harness the idea of commitment among writers and intellectuals, but to redefine what commitment meant to being committed to these governmental causes. And this was very convenient when the war broke out in 1980. So when the war breaks out in September 1980, both countries, well, particularly Iraq at that point dumped tons of money and resources into creating a state literature, into creating a state war culture. And Iran, you know, which was coming out of the revolution was, you know, pretty quick to catch up to it, but. But staggered a bit in the beginning. The idea of commitment at that moment was redefined to be committed to the causes of the states. And both states were kind of able to silence dissents and kind of, you know, dominate the entire discourse around politics generally. But the war, especially at that moment, commitment being one of those causes, you know, one of those areas in which the. Which both states now controlled.

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[Tirul Mende]

Thank you. And coming to, especially to Iraqi literature, there are of course like, famous authors like Ahmed Sadawi with his recent novel Frankenstein and Baghdad and Sinan Anton, of course. How does these novels compare to the Persian literature during that time period? How they are connected with each other?

[Amir Mousavi]

Ahmad Saadawi and Sanaa Anton are arguably the two most famous Iraqi novelists that I deal with in the book. Saadawi's novel, of course one the Arabic Booker, it was, you know, it's been translated into I think at this point, dozens of languages. You know, it's, it's, it's very well known both in English and in, in Arabic as well as all these other languages. Senator Anton's novel Aigem is the one that I deal with most explicitly and in depth, but also reference the corpse washer in both the introduction and the, the conclusion of the book. Both of these authors are part of this kind of post 2003 wave of Iraqi literature that exploded onto the world literary scene with the backing of publishing houses, particularly in the U.S. but other countries as well, who are willing now to take on Iraqi writers and publish Iraqi writers. And then things like the Arabic Booker Prize. That's, you know, and as well as the international booker that, you know, elevated a writer like Saadawi in particular onto the World literary scene. So I think these two writers in particular, you know, along with somebody like Hassan Blassem, to a lesser extent, Mohsen Ramli, the Al Jubeili people who I also deal with in this book, you know, have an audience that's much bigger than most Iranian fiction writers today, contemporary Iranian fiction writers. And, you know, they also have the freedom to write about this period that Iranian writers living in Iran don't have, you know, to the. To the same extent. And so on the one hand, the biggest difference between them is the audience and is the number of people who are exposed to their writing within Iran. Of course, the state is still invested in kind of maintaining its position on the war and maintaining its hegemonic sort of position on the war in the country, and still supports, you know, less and less I think, every year, but still supports to a great deal, great degree, the production of literature that espouses the state's view of the war. And so Iranian writers are simultaneously dealing with that dynamic on the inside, along with the difficulty in finding translators and publishing houses to publish them on the outside. So in that sense, there's a very big difference between writers on both sides now in terms of, you know, the content. You know, it runs the gamut on both sides of the war. However, I tend to feel that Iraqi writers, particularly of the generation of, you know, people like Saadawi or Sinat Anton or Mohsnan Ramli, who, you know, are now looking at the period of the 1980s and periodizing it, you know, it was this. It was Saddam's last kind of, you know, grand period just preceding the 1991 Gulf War, the sanction, and then followed by the sanctions years, followed by what happened in 2003, followed by what happened afterwards. And so there is this kind of. Among Iraqi writers, there tends to be this conception of time that's dictated by different wars. And I think, you know, both of these novels that you. That you mentioned, Saadawi's Frankenstein and Sunan Anton Zia Jam, both speak to that in different ways. Of course, Saadawi's novel is not a novel about the Iran Iraq war itself, but it cannot exist if not for the war. The. The. The. The monster that comes to life, you know, is. Is brought to life with the, The. The. The clothes of an MIA soldier from that war, and his first victim is somebody of that, you know, is a Ba' Est officer who sent the. The. The owner of those clothes to the front lines. Right. So, yeah, the engagement has to do with time and political developments. In both countries.

[Tirul Mende]

Thank you so much, Amir. And I mean, it's such a complex theme and topic that you worked on. How hard was it for you to navigate through these novels and to look at what you wanted to choose, and how did you choose them in order to formulate your argument in the book that you wrote about it?

[Amir Mousavi]

Yeah, sure. So I make very clear from the start that this is not a comprehensive study. This is not an encyclopedic study of everything that's been written about the war. There's been so much written about this conflict in terms of fiction, nonfiction, essays, poetry, and then we get to film and everything. So I, you know, it was already. It's already a big enough topic on its own. And then to bring in both sides, to have them somehow coherently speak to each other, which was my goal, it got even bigger. So from the start, I say this is not a. This is not a comprehensive study. This is not an encyclopedic study in any way. So I, I stuck to. I wasn't trying to uncover literary gems here. I was working with some of the, you know, biggest name, Biggest names on both sides in terms of writers of fiction. And I was also, you know, trying to, you know, what I was doing is. Is working with what I had noticed in my readings of their works, right, which was a common thematic engagement with the war chronologically kind of also running parallel to each other. And so I, I chose them that way. I, you know, noticed writers who were dealing in the immediate aftermath with the kind of grief of. Of families on the home front. I noticed that, you know, in the. In the first decade and a half after the war ended, we had a lot of rebellious former combatant writers who are each dealing with different dynamics depending on where they are located, right? So some of them are, you know, Iraqi writers writing from outside of the country. Some of them are Iranian writers affiliated with the states in some way or another. But in the end, they were all kind of critiquing the war from the perspective of the war fronts and, you know, doing at times, interesting, I think, formal techniques that, you know, that, that, that, that created a basis for comparison between the two sides. So that's how I tried to try to limit, you know, what I was working with. That was the. Really, the biggest challenge was, you know, limiting out of this huge, huge body of work to create a coherent story where both sides are. Are, you know, writing about this, you know, the similar experience of having fought in this war, but in a way that we can use a comparative perspective to illuminate what's going on on both sides.

[Tirul Mende]

Thank you so much. And coming maybe to the last usual question that I always ask, like, is the Iran Iraq war something that you still want to work on on your next projects, or is it going to be something that you leave behind with this publication?

[Amir Mousavi]

Well, there it's something that I'd like to leave behind in the, you know, for the immediate, you know, for the short term future. But it will be something that I come back to probably, namely because I'm very much interested in the, particularly the 1980s or what we can call the kind of long 1980s something, you know, that's, that starts around the end of, you know, the end of the 1970s and goes to 1991, the end of the Cold War, more or less, and kind of how writers have gone back and treated that kind of highly, highly important period, which centers in some ways or kind of erupts in some ways around the year 1979, right when we have the revolution in Iran, we have Saddam Hussein's ascension to power, the Soviet Afghan war, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. So you have this, the siege of the Meccan mosque in Saudi Arabia. So there's the Grand Mosque in Mecca, I'm sorry, in Saudi Arabia. There's so many major political events that happen at that time. And I think it's taken a while for writers to come back and kind of treat that period in a way that sees its longer term effects and in some ways kind of writes the history of the present. So I'm currently working on a special issue, I have to say, about this with several colleagues that will come out hopefully with the journal Middle Eastern Literatures. And as a second book topic, I will probably return to this period. The second thing that I'm also working on also comes directly out of the last chapter of this book, which is, you know, ecocritical approaches to this region, you know, particularly the Gulf, Iran, Iraq, but the surrounding region as well, and how writers, artists are dealing with the, you know, ecological disaster that has struck this part of the world, manifesting itself in soaring temperatures and a lack of water and war based pollutions and pollutants and such in the environment. So yeah, it's not the Iranian rock war specifically, but adjacent topics are definitely on my radar.

[Tirul Mende]

Thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast, Amir, and it was really interesting to get your work a little bit better. So thank you so much for being here.

[Amir Mousavi]

Yeah, thank you for having me.