Free Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour

has a real existence, and with this real existence he can enforce the censoring of his old name and its replacement with his new one. However, from the start of this story, I have seen Dara in the shape of the word “Dara,” I have grown attached to him, and it is with this name that I have developed his character. If, based on the Sinbad Theory, I change his name at this point, I will also have to change his character. For a writer, this is akin to committing cold-blooded premeditated murder. Yes, it is true that my writings are dark and that because of the darkness in my mind I have sent several of my stories’ characters to death and destruction. But these days, with all my being, as a will and last testament, I want to write a bright love story in which there is no sorrow, no one dies, no hearts suffer, not even the tip of a pencil breaks.
    It is here that I must recount the story of naming my daughter. Even if you don’t ask, I will tell you:
    When my daughter was born I wanted to name her Brn (Rain). In fact, to find this unique and rare name, I had reflected and researched for more than a month. I had told myself that the daughter of a young man who wants to someday become one of the greatest writers of his country, even of the world, should have a name that is Iranian, beautiful, literary, rare, a symbol of life and reflective of the particular creative taste of her parents … But when I went to the General Register Office to get her birth certificate, I was told that I could not name my daughter Brn. I asked:
    “Why can’t I name my daughter Brn?”
    The young bearded administrator in charge of birth certificates looked at me as though he were looking at some idiot who had given no thought to the future and fate of his daughter and said:
    “I have never heard of anyone naming their daughter Brn.”
    “But I want to name my daughter Brn.”
    He scoffed:
    “My good man, who in their right mind names an innocent child Brn? In a few years, when your daughter goes to school, she will stand out, her classmates have never heard of anyone named Brn, they will make fun of her. They will tease her and say your father must have been a cloud … Do you get it, Papa Cloud?”
    “Sir! Brn has a romantic and beautiful nuance. In our desert country rain is a divine gift. Allow me to name my daughter Brn. I am sure that from now on many people will name their daughters Brn.”
    By now he was angry. He roared:
    “No! I will not … We have prepared a list of beautiful, meaningful Islamic names. Look through the list and find a proper name for the poor child.”
    He put a list of hundreds of names in front of me. Most of them were Arab names. Feeling obstinate, and of course not daring to express my anger, I blurted out:
    “Sir, can I name her Roja?”
    He knotted his eyebrows that were thicker than his beard.
    I said:
    “The name is popular in northern Iran. Roja means the ‘morning star.’ ”
    He agreed.
    In those days, Communist parties were still active in Iran, and they often named their artistic groups and the bands that played their revolutionary anthems Roja or the Red Star … It seems the world’s Communists have taken full ownership of stars, similar to Muslims and the crescent moon … Still, my daughter’s name did not become Roja as easily as that. A month later when I went back to pick up her birth certificate, I saw that instead of “Roja” they had mistakenly, or intentionally, written “Raja,” which is not only an Arab name but a man’s name. The law in Iran requires that to change a name one must petition the court. We were forced to hire an attorney, and a year later, when the court agreed to the correction of my daughter’s name, she finally became Roja. I have never in my life been a Communist, not only because I was born to a bourgeois family, but also because I have read books such as Animal Farm …
    Likewise, I have never been Jewish. Years later, when once again I went to the General