In the nineteenth century, Nietzsche, through his critique of religion, morality, and modernity, launched a project to redefine the human position within a nihilistic world-a project crystallized in the concepts of the Übermensch and the will to power. This study offers a philosophical–critical and interdisciplinary reading of Houshang Golshiri’s novel Prince Ehtejab to explore the possibility of the Nietzschean Overman’s emergence within the context of Iranian modernity during the Pahlavi II era.
The analysis of the interrelation among form, ideology, and subjectivity reveals that Golshiri, by introducing a fourth element- “formal leftism” -transforms the novel’s fragmented and self-referential structure into a field of resistance where the subject confronts the collapse of meaning. This formal leftism transcends political inclination and manifests instead as a philosophical and justice-oriented disposition materialized in linguistic and mnemonic structures, distinct from traditional leftist thought.
In confronting both passive nihilism (the absence of the Overman) and active nihilism (the potential for the Overman’s presence), Golshiri constructs an intermediate state that enables the becoming of a localized Overman. Within this horizon, Prince Ehtejab’s transformation into a fiery, transient Overman reconfigures Nietzsche’s will to power into a will to erasure - revealing, through Golshiri’s critical re-reading of Nietzsche, the possibility of overcoming indigenous forms of nihilism in modern Iranian literature.