This article employs a sociology of literature approach to examine bestselling Persian novels published in the three decades following the Iran–Iraq War (1988–2017) as part of Iran’s cultural field. Novels are conceptualized not merely as literary texts but as cultural media and symbolic commodities operating in a dialectical relationship with structures of power, cultural policymaking, the publishing industry, and patterns of cultural consumption.

The study draws on official statistics from the Iran Book and Literature House, using print runs and edition numbers as indicators. Without reliable sales data, these measures allow analysis of the publishing market and distribution of cultural and symbolic capital. After data collection, cleaning, and standardization, a corpus of bestselling novels compiled and analyzed.

The findings indicate that the first postwar decade was dominated by romantic fiction and a comfort-oriented mode of cultural consumption. The second decade continued this pattern while introducing simplified spiritual narratives, signaling the consolidation of a “managed” literary taste. In the third decade, readers’ preferences shifted toward polyphony, social realism, and greater diversity. These changes reflect transformations in the structure of feeling, shifts in cultural capital, and the persistent divide between popular and elite literature in contemporary Iran under cultural policies.