Simin Dāneshvar’s Savushun is the first Persian novel ever authored by a female fiction writer. First published in 1969, it has sold over half a million copies and it has also been translated into English, Russian, French and Japanese, among other languages. Savushun is a masterpiece in contemporary Persian literature that encapsulates the life of many Iranians in the last years of World War II, when the Soviets and the British had occupied Iran. Social problems, including the presence of the foreign armies in the country and the economic pressure on people to supply food sources for the occupying troops, provoked animosity among people, which put the society in turmoil.

In this study, I explore a vital part of Iran’s prerevolutionary history: the foreign intervention in Iran during World War II, as portrayed in the literary work Savushun. The main objective of this study is to determine whether Savushun has postcolonial elements to be considered as a postcolonial literary work. Through critically analyzing the novel, the findings of this study reveal that Savushun explores themes related to postcolonialism through depiction of the indigenous people’s experiences in Shiraz during the World War II. The results of this study suggest that Simin Dāneshvar gives a voice to her complaint against the colonial-like actions of foreign troops in Iran, as well as her demands on political change and civil liberties using a covert language, which is enriched with symbols of Iranian nationalism in Savushun.