ONLY SOUND REMAINS by Hossein Asgari

This year’s Miles Franklin Award has proven a boon for novella lovers, with three of the six books shortlisted for Australia’s biggest literary prize clocking in under 200 pages (another is 750+ so… swings and roundabouts). By chance, I’ve already reviewed Hospital and Wall, but had not heard of Only Sound Remains until the list was announced so I’m indebted to the judges for putting me onto it.

Saeed is an Iranian author living in Adelaide, having fled his homeland after falling afoul of the regime. One day, Saeed’s father, Ismael, calls to say he is visiting. It is out of character for the old man, and we soon learn that he is coming with a very particular purpose: to tell his son of his involvement in Iran’s 1966 political upheaval, and to unload about his great unrequited love for the controversial poet Forugh Farrokhzad.

Only Sound Remains is a complex, deeply serious novel, achingly beautiful in its spare lyricism. Although sculpted to within an inch of its life, and oddly unsatisfying in aspects of its resolution, it is refreshing and unexpected in what it has to say, and makes for a welcome Miles Franklin contender.

Only Sound Remains by Hossein Asgari
Puncher & Wattmann, 2024
175 pages