“Symphony of the Dead” by Abbas Maroufi has a certain literary power that endures, even when the translation reveals its limitations and its significance within Iranian literature remains clear.
Maroufi situated the narrative in 1940s Ardabil, a region in northern Iran, during the waning years of Reza Shah’s rule.
The story centers on the Orkhani family, whose members are profoundly shaped by an oppressive traditionalism embodied by their father, Jafer.
Yusef, the eldest son, suffers from severe physical disabilities resulting from a childhood injury, rendering him dependent on the family until his death at the hands of the youngest son Urhan.
Twins Ideen and Ida experience vastly different fates: Ideen, a sensitive poet and intellectual, has his creative aspirations suppressed by his father after gaining popularity by publishing his poems in local newspapers, while Ida, initially confined to the four walls of her kitchen, later flees her family home by eloping and ultimately sets herself.
Urhan inherits his father’s authoritarianism as well as the family nut shop in Ardabil. The motif of fratricide is central, with the narrative drawing on the Quranic account of Cain and Abel to contextualize the family’s violent dynamics.
Urhan assumes the role of a modern Cain, having murdered Yusef, whom he believed to be an adversary; he later becomes fixated on eliminating Ideen who, like Abel, receives all his father’s affection which is just disguised suspicion.
The novel interrogates the consequences of suppressed expression. The father’s rigid righteousness and refusal to accept unfamiliar ideas devastate his children’s lives.
However, Maroufi refrains from depicting him as a mere antagonist, instead presenting him as a product of his historical, religious and cultural context. His indifference to events such as the Russian invasion is summed up in his assertion that “it hardly matters who rules.”
This portrays a man so deeply defined by inherited beliefs that he has lost the capacity for independent thought. He seeks dignity within a wider religious framework, resulting in a passive stance toward politics and life, yet manifesting as oppressive control over his children.
Ideen dreams of leaving his provincial home in Ardabil to pursue a literary life in Tehran, distinguishing himself from his merchant relatives. The loss of his poetry, central to his sense of self, drives him toward madness, rendering him a fragmented figure who recites disjointed memories in public.
Ideen’s fate illustrates the obliteration of intellectual ambition within a traditional society that suppresses artistic expression through authority and opposition to change.
The accursed poet archetype is accentuated through Maroufi’s shifting perspectives and nonlinear chronology, which frequently transitions between past and present on a single page.
This narrative form risks disorienting the reader, but with some patience, it effectively mirrors psychological fragmentation and evokes the sense of a puzzle coming together.
These jumps ultimately reinforce the central themes of grief and memory. Maroufi’s prose remains anchored in vivid sensory imagery, particularly in the setting. His language possesses a poetic prose that draws even the bleakest moments.
The love story between Ideen and Sormeh is where the novel’s prose does its most visible work.
Love, within this account, is not conventionally redemptive since there is no salvation, but it is genuine and provides fleeting moments of expansion amid otherwise constricted lives.
