Examining the Characteristics of Surrealist Fantasy in Ahmad Hassanzadeh’s Khial Baz

Surrealism is one of the important literary schools of the 20th century. Due to its specific principles, Surrealism was first considered to be a school suitable for poetry. Over time, however, some famous surreal artists produced different kinds of narratives which raised a serious question: what are the characteristic features of surrealist narratives? There was no doubt that the emphasis on the unconscious and techniques such as stream of consciousness would inevitably change the form of surrealist narrative, an issue that can be seen in most modern and post-modern narratives. Therefore, it is impossible to consider the surreal aspects of the narrative by focusing only on the form. To investigate the characteristics of surrealist narrative, therefore, we attempted to focus on Ahmad Hasanzadeh's Khial Baz through an analytical-descriptive method. Findings suggest that the presence of elements such as fantasy have blurred the boundary between dream and reality and resulted in the construction of a meta-reality: the prominent role of sleep and revelation in the text, the effect of drug use on narrative actions and special emphasis on the madness of the main character are major features that have contributed to the surreal atmosphere of the narrative.