Nakedin the Wind

Naked in the Wind, written by Mohammad Mohammadali, was first published in 1994 and is the recipient of the Yalda Literary Award.

Set against the turbulent backdrop of wartime Iran, the novel follows Mehrali Javanmard, an employee at the Retirement Office in Tehran, who encounters a file that reawakens memories of his military service in a small border town in Kurdistan during the 1960s. In those years, he had formed a close friendship with Lieutenant Marashi — a charismatic, larger-than-life figure whose adventurous spirit and unpredictable nature left a lasting impression on him. Years later, Javanmard is unexpectedly confronted with a man bearing the same name, now altered in appearance and demeanor, who arrives at his office to pursue a retirement case.

This unexpected reunion draws Javanmard and the lieutenant into a journey to northern Iran, where Javanmard’s family has sought refuge from the bombings. There, the presence of Javanmard’s father-in-law — a retired colonel with a fascination for detective work — intensifies the tension. Convinced he recognizes the lieutenant under the name “Mansour Beatle,” accusing him of murder. What follows is a series of interrogations that oscillate between seriousness and play, as the lieutenant responds with provocative, self-mythologizing accounts that blur the boundaries between truth and invention.

As the narrative unfolds, the lieutenant’s life emerges as a fragmented puzzle of conflicting testimonies, elusive memories, and uncertain truths. The novel skillfully sustains ambiguity, inviting readers to question the reliability of memory, identity, and storytelling itself. In the end, Naked in the Wind offers not a definitive account of events, but a meditation on the instability of truth and the ways in which lives are reconstructed through narration, suspicion, and imagination.