Simin Daneshvar’s Savushun (1969), the first Persian novel penned by a woman, foregrounds Iran’s loss of political autonomy during the Second World War and the country’s occupation by the Allies. The plot of the novel maps the occupation onto the life of a land-owning family in Shiraz confronted with the difficult choice of meeting the British forces’ demand for provisions to the detriment of the local towns and villages. As the female protagonist of the novel, Zari, watches her husband, Yusof, resist the dictates of the occupiers, she resolves to keep her focus exclusively on her family, sidestepping the domain of politics. But the presence of the British affects all aspects of life, blurring the demarcation between the insider and the outsider. Some Iranians, even members of Yusof’s family, adapt and succumb to the exigencies of occupation, becoming indifferent not only to nation’s political autonomy but also its cultural authenticity. Through the perspective of the main characters, Yusof and Zari, the novel critiques the apparent ease with which some residents of the city and levels of government conform to the new political, social, and cultural order. The characters that resist the authority of the occupying forces see conformity as part of larger threat to the very core of the nation. In this presentation I will analyze the novel’s thematic focus on the need to defend and preserve Iranian national identity. My analysis will situate Savushun in the modern Iranian discourses of authenticity and will pay particular attention to the absence of any reflection on the use of the novel as a genre not native to the Persian literary tradition. My aim is to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of Simin Daneshvar’s contribution to debates and anxieties about authenticity in modern Persian literature.