ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the production of intimate literary publics in Iran by investigating the central role of the figure of the suffering prostitute in popular novels from the 1920s to ’70s. In doing so, it examines the affective economy of modern popular literature and revisits early formations of the genre of the “social novel.” The construction of emotions and sensibilities are understudied in the historiography of both modern Iran and Persian literature. However, they are pivotal to modern literary formations, as well as modern liberal subjectivities. In specific, Gahan explores literary articulations of compassion and disgust by way of the prolific spectacles of suffering female bodies in popular literature. She further argues that there was a rise of a compassionate impulse in early twentieth-century Iran that was rooted in reformist aspirations of liberal humanitarianism. Ultimately, writing emotions back into historiography opens up new avenues for understanding the development of Persian modern literary forms and its interconnectedness to everyday experiences of modernity in Iran.
