The Place of Showhar-e-Ahoo Khanom Novel in Iranian Fiction

Having published his first novel, Ali Mohammad Afghani (born in 1925, Kermanshah) reached the top of his literary career. Considering the dearth of creative literary activities in the years following the coup of 18th August 1953 and other social, literary and historical reasons discussed in the paper, the novel (written in 1961) was remarkably acclaimed by the readers.Following this acclamation, literary critics also appreciated the author as the greatest contemporary novelist and his work as the greatest novel of the century. Although Afghani wrote several other novels, because of certain reasons discussedin the article he could never regain the acceptance of the readers.Now after half a century of the publication of the novel and its becoming one of the classics in the history of contemporary novel-writing in Iran, we have a new study of the role Ali Mohammad Afghani and his outstanding book in the formation and development of Persian novel.Moreover, we try to show how he has been affected by earlier narrative literature and his impact on subsequent novels.In order to clarify the reasons behind the books popularity with the readers and its position among Persian novels, the sociological and literary dimensions of the work are discussed in this article.