A Genealogical Study of Iranian Popular Fiction

Popular literature constitutes a living layer of Iran’s narrative culture—one that, although not always granted a stable position within the formal system of literary criticism, has consistently played a decisive role in terms of readership and cultural influence. Many critics have labeled popular narratives as “easily accessible,” “commercial,” or “lacking aesthetic value.” However, more recent studies demonstrate that these works, from the perspective of the sociology of literature, offer profound insight into the social structures and collective mentality of Iranians. In each decade, specific subgenres of popular fiction have flourished: the romantic serials of the 1940s–50s (1320s–1330s), the heroic-historical narratives of the 1960s (1340s), the sentimental novels of the 1970s (1350s), their temporary decline in the early 1980s (1360s), the major resurgence of the 1990s and 2000s (1370s–1380s), and finally the emergence of digitally-driven storytelling in the 2010s (1390s). These transformations reveal that popular fiction is not an isolated phenomenon but one deeply intertwined with Iran’s shifting social and cultural contexts. This article aims to analyze the historical evolution and structural developments of Iranian popular fiction through a coherent, scholarly, and analytical approach.