Does a novel need a factchecker? Not for the kinds of truths that Amin, the scruffy protagonist of Hossein Asgari’s second novel, Desolation, holds dear. He accosts a young Iranian-Australian writer in an Adelaide cafe and announces that he has a story for him: “It’s a true story, not one of those made-up, pointless whatever it is that you people write.” The writer is sceptical – “I have no interest in a true story, if such a thing exists” – but he listens.
The writer is never named and Amin is not the stranger’s real name but, over a series of meetings in parks and cafes, Amin tells the writer his story. The bulk of the novel follows Amin’s life in post-revolutionary Iran, in the aftermath of the war with Iraq, and is narrated in the third person by a writer. But which one? Asgari is an Iranian-Australian writer who lives in Adelaide and he dares the reader to identify him in or with the narrative. Desolation flirts with the narrative conventions of autofiction but has loftier preoccupations than the relationship between the author and narrator. During one of their last meetings, Amin tells the writer: “You can add whatever you want to my story as long as you’re telling the truth even when you lie.”
