Introduction
Real and Surreal is a collection of nine short stories by Taraneh Habib. As the title suggests, these narratives move back and forth between reality and dream. Stories such as “The Bride and the Old Man of the Marsh,” “Me and the Devil,” “A Woman in the Mirror,” and “Noghreh and the Poplar” together build a world in which the line between what actually happens and what unfolds in the characters’ minds is never quite clear. The book’s central themes — woman, memory, identity, and fate — are told in an atmosphere that is by turns bitter and dreamlike. The collection is written for readers of contemporary Persian fiction and literary short stories.
Evaluation
The book’s structure rests on the duality of its title: each story stands somewhere between realism and the surreal. Habib draws on memory and the past through largely female points of view, and through poetic, image-rich prose she creates deeply sensory spaces — the smell of wet earth, moonlight, the cold of old rooms. Recurring motifs such as the mirror (notably in “A Woman in the Mirror”), water and the marsh, and the presence of the supernatural (in “Me and the Devil”) serve as the symbolic pillars of the narrative. The characters are defined less by outward action than by their inner worlds — which leaves the endings open and many-layered rather than offering firm resolution.
Reception
Real and Surreal is the kind of book that raises questions rather than answering them, inviting the reader to reflect on the thin border between reality and illusion, and on fate and choice. The effect of many of the stories takes shape not at the moment they end, but in the silence that follows and in the space between the lines. Readers’ responses and reviews of the collection will be gathered here.