Author: Nima Naghibi
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452950032
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
Women Write Iran is the first full-length study on life narratives by Iranian women in the diaspora. Nima Naghibi investigates auto/biographical narratives across genres—including memoirs, documentary films, prison testimonials, and graphic novels—and finds that they are tied together by the experience of the 1979 Iranian revolution as a traumatic event and by a powerful nostalgia for an idealized past. Naghibi is particularly interested in writing as both an expression of memory and an assertion of human rights. She discovers that writing life narratives contributes to the larger enterprise of righting historical injustices. By drawing on the empathy of the reader/spectator/witness, Naghibi contends, life narratives offer the possibilities of connecting to others and responding with an increased commitment to social justice. The book opens with an examination of how the widely circulated video footage of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan on the streets of Tehran in June 2009 triggered the articulation of life narratives by diasporic Iranians. It concludes with a discussion of the prominent place of the 1979 revolution in these narratives. Throughout, the focus is on works that have become popular in the West, such as Marjane Satrapi’s best-selling graphic novel Persepolis. Naghibi addresses the significant questions raised by these works: How do we engage with human rights and social justice as readers in the West? How do these narratives draw our attention and elicit our empathic reactions? And what is our responsibility as witnesses to trauma, atrocity, and human suffering?
Women Write Iran
Author: Nima Naghibi
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452950032
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
Women Write Iran is the first full-length study on life narratives by Iranian women in the diaspora. Nima Naghibi investigates auto/biographical narratives across genres—including memoirs, documentary films, prison testimonials, and graphic novels—and finds that they are tied together by the experience of the 1979 Iranian revolution as a traumatic event and by a powerful nostalgia for an idealized past. Naghibi is particularly interested in writing as both an expression of memory and an assertion of human rights. She discovers that writing life narratives contributes to the larger enterprise of righting historical injustices. By drawing on the empathy of the reader/spectator/witness, Naghibi contends, life narratives offer the possibilities of connecting to others and responding with an increased commitment to social justice. The book opens with an examination of how the widely circulated video footage of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan on the streets of Tehran in June 2009 triggered the articulation of life narratives by diasporic Iranians. It concludes with a discussion of the prominent place of the 1979 revolution in these narratives. Throughout, the focus is on works that have become popular in the West, such as Marjane Satrapi’s best-selling graphic novel Persepolis. Naghibi addresses the significant questions raised by these works: How do we engage with human rights and social justice as readers in the West? How do these narratives draw our attention and elicit our empathic reactions? And what is our responsibility as witnesses to trauma, atrocity, and human suffering?
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452950032
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
Women Write Iran is the first full-length study on life narratives by Iranian women in the diaspora. Nima Naghibi investigates auto/biographical narratives across genres—including memoirs, documentary films, prison testimonials, and graphic novels—and finds that they are tied together by the experience of the 1979 Iranian revolution as a traumatic event and by a powerful nostalgia for an idealized past. Naghibi is particularly interested in writing as both an expression of memory and an assertion of human rights. She discovers that writing life narratives contributes to the larger enterprise of righting historical injustices. By drawing on the empathy of the reader/spectator/witness, Naghibi contends, life narratives offer the possibilities of connecting to others and responding with an increased commitment to social justice. The book opens with an examination of how the widely circulated video footage of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan on the streets of Tehran in June 2009 triggered the articulation of life narratives by diasporic Iranians. It concludes with a discussion of the prominent place of the 1979 revolution in these narratives. Throughout, the focus is on works that have become popular in the West, such as Marjane Satrapi’s best-selling graphic novel Persepolis. Naghibi addresses the significant questions raised by these works: How do we engage with human rights and social justice as readers in the West? How do these narratives draw our attention and elicit our empathic reactions? And what is our responsibility as witnesses to trauma, atrocity, and human suffering?
Divided Loyalties
Author: Nilofar Shidmehr
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 1487006039
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Acclaimed poet Nilofar Shidmehr’s debut story collection is an unflinching look at the lives of women in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada. The stories begin in 1978, the year before the Iranian Revolution. In a neighbourhood in Tehran, a group of affluent girls play a Cinderella game with unexpected consequences. In the mid 1980s, women help their husbands and brothers survive war and political upheaval. In the early 1990s in Vancouver, Canada, a single-mother refugee is harassed by the men she meets on a telephone dating platform. And in 2003, a Canadian woman working for an international aid organization is dispatched to her hometown of Bam to assist in the wake of a devastating earthquake. At once powerful and profound, Divided Loyalties depicts the rich lives of Iranian women and girls in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada; the enduring complexity of the expectations forced upon them; and the resilience of a community experiencing the turmoil of war, revolution, and migration.
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 1487006039
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Acclaimed poet Nilofar Shidmehr’s debut story collection is an unflinching look at the lives of women in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada. The stories begin in 1978, the year before the Iranian Revolution. In a neighbourhood in Tehran, a group of affluent girls play a Cinderella game with unexpected consequences. In the mid 1980s, women help their husbands and brothers survive war and political upheaval. In the early 1990s in Vancouver, Canada, a single-mother refugee is harassed by the men she meets on a telephone dating platform. And in 2003, a Canadian woman working for an international aid organization is dispatched to her hometown of Bam to assist in the wake of a devastating earthquake. At once powerful and profound, Divided Loyalties depicts the rich lives of Iranian women and girls in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada; the enduring complexity of the expectations forced upon them; and the resilience of a community experiencing the turmoil of war, revolution, and migration.
Women and Politics in Iran: Veiling, Unveiling and Reveiling
Author: Hamideh Sedghi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511296574
Category : SOCIAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
Why were urban women veiled in the early 1900s, unveiled from 1936 to 1979, and reveiled after the 1979 revolution? This question forms the basis of Hamideh Sedghi's original and unprecedented contribution to politics and Middle Eastern studies. Using primary and secondary sources, Sedghi offers new knowledge on women's agency in relation to state power. In this rigorous analysis she places contention over women at the centre of the political struggle between secular and religious forces and demonstrates that control over women's identities, sexuality, and labor has been central to the consolidation of state power. Sedghi links politics and culture with economics to present an integrated analysis of the private and public lives of different classes of women and their modes of resistance to state power.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511296574
Category : SOCIAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
Why were urban women veiled in the early 1900s, unveiled from 1936 to 1979, and reveiled after the 1979 revolution? This question forms the basis of Hamideh Sedghi's original and unprecedented contribution to politics and Middle Eastern studies. Using primary and secondary sources, Sedghi offers new knowledge on women's agency in relation to state power. In this rigorous analysis she places contention over women at the centre of the political struggle between secular and religious forces and demonstrates that control over women's identities, sexuality, and labor has been central to the consolidation of state power. Sedghi links politics and culture with economics to present an integrated analysis of the private and public lives of different classes of women and their modes of resistance to state power.
The Last Days of Café Leila
Author: Donia Bijan
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616208031
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
“A glorious treat awaits you at the literary table of Donia Bijan.” —Adriana Trigiani Set against the backdrop of Iran’s rich, turbulent history, this exquisite debut novel is a powerful story of food, family, and a bittersweet homecoming. When we first meet Noor, she is living in San Francisco, missing her beloved father, Zod, in Iran. Now, dragging her stubborn teenage daughter, Lily, with her, she returns to Tehran and to Café Leila, the restaurant her family has been running for three generations. Iran may have changed, but Café Leila, still run by Zod, has stayed blessedly the same—it is a refuge of laughter and solace for its makeshift family of staff and regulars. As Noor revisits her Persian childhood, she must rethink who she is—a mother, a daughter, a woman estranged from her marriage and from her life in California. And together, she and Lily get swept up in the beauty and brutality of Tehran. Bijan’s vivid, layered story, at once tender and elegant, funny and sad, weaves together the complexities of history, domesticity, and loyalty and, best of all, transports readers to another culture, another time, and another emotional landscape.
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616208031
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
“A glorious treat awaits you at the literary table of Donia Bijan.” —Adriana Trigiani Set against the backdrop of Iran’s rich, turbulent history, this exquisite debut novel is a powerful story of food, family, and a bittersweet homecoming. When we first meet Noor, she is living in San Francisco, missing her beloved father, Zod, in Iran. Now, dragging her stubborn teenage daughter, Lily, with her, she returns to Tehran and to Café Leila, the restaurant her family has been running for three generations. Iran may have changed, but Café Leila, still run by Zod, has stayed blessedly the same—it is a refuge of laughter and solace for its makeshift family of staff and regulars. As Noor revisits her Persian childhood, she must rethink who she is—a mother, a daughter, a woman estranged from her marriage and from her life in California. And together, she and Lily get swept up in the beauty and brutality of Tehran. Bijan’s vivid, layered story, at once tender and elegant, funny and sad, weaves together the complexities of history, domesticity, and loyalty and, best of all, transports readers to another culture, another time, and another emotional landscape.
Things I've Been Silent About
Author: Azar Nafisi
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588367495
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
"Absorbing . . . a testament to the ways in which narrative truth-telling—from the greatest works of literature to the most intimate family stories—sustains and strengthens us.”—O: The Oprah Magazine In this stunning personal story of growing up in Iran, Azar Nafisi shares her memories of living in thrall to a powerful and complex mother against the backdrop of a country’s political revolution. A girl’s pain over family secrets, a young woman’s discovery of the power of sensuality in literature, the price a family pays for freedom in a country beset by upheaval—these and other threads are woven together in this beautiful memoir as a gifted storyteller once again transforms the way we see the world and “reminds us of why we read in the first place” (Newsday). BONUS: This edition contains a Things I've Been Silent About discussion guide. Praise for Things I've Been Silent About “Deeply felt . . . an affecting account of a family’s struggle.”—New York Times “A gifted storyteller with a mastery of Western literature, Nafisi knows how to use language both to settle scores and to seduce.”—New York Times Book Review “An immensely rewarding and beautifully written act of courage, by turns amusing, tender and obsessively dogged.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A lyrical, often wrenching memoir.”—People
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588367495
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
"Absorbing . . . a testament to the ways in which narrative truth-telling—from the greatest works of literature to the most intimate family stories—sustains and strengthens us.”—O: The Oprah Magazine In this stunning personal story of growing up in Iran, Azar Nafisi shares her memories of living in thrall to a powerful and complex mother against the backdrop of a country’s political revolution. A girl’s pain over family secrets, a young woman’s discovery of the power of sensuality in literature, the price a family pays for freedom in a country beset by upheaval—these and other threads are woven together in this beautiful memoir as a gifted storyteller once again transforms the way we see the world and “reminds us of why we read in the first place” (Newsday). BONUS: This edition contains a Things I've Been Silent About discussion guide. Praise for Things I've Been Silent About “Deeply felt . . . an affecting account of a family’s struggle.”—New York Times “A gifted storyteller with a mastery of Western literature, Nafisi knows how to use language both to settle scores and to seduce.”—New York Times Book Review “An immensely rewarding and beautifully written act of courage, by turns amusing, tender and obsessively dogged.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A lyrical, often wrenching memoir.”—People
My Bird
Author: Fariba Vafi
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815651414
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 161
Book Description
In this powerful story of life, love, and the demands of marriage and motherhood, Fariba Vafi gives readers a portrait of one woman’s struggle to adapt to the complexity of life in modern Iran. The narrator, a housewife and young mother living in a low-income neighborhood in Tehran, dwells upon her husband Amir’s desire to immigrate to Canada. His peripatetic lifestyle underscores her own sense of inertia. When he finally slips away, the young woman is forced to raise the children alone and care for her ailing mother. Vafi’s brilliant minimalist style showcases the narrator’s reticence and passivity. Brief chapters and spare prose provide the ideal architecture for the character’s densely packed unexpressed emotions to unfold on the page. Haunted by the childhood memory of her father’s death in the basement of her house while her mother ignored his entreaties for help, the narrator believes she relinquished her responsibility and failed to challenge her mother. As a single parent and head of household, she must confront her paralyzing guilt and establish her independence. Vafi’s characters are emblematic of many women in Iran, caught between tradition and modernity. Demystifying contemporary Iran by taking readers beyond the stereotypes and into the lives of individuals, Vafi is one of the most important voices in Iranian literature. My Bird heralds her eagerly anticipated introduction to an English-speaking audience.
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815651414
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 161
Book Description
In this powerful story of life, love, and the demands of marriage and motherhood, Fariba Vafi gives readers a portrait of one woman’s struggle to adapt to the complexity of life in modern Iran. The narrator, a housewife and young mother living in a low-income neighborhood in Tehran, dwells upon her husband Amir’s desire to immigrate to Canada. His peripatetic lifestyle underscores her own sense of inertia. When he finally slips away, the young woman is forced to raise the children alone and care for her ailing mother. Vafi’s brilliant minimalist style showcases the narrator’s reticence and passivity. Brief chapters and spare prose provide the ideal architecture for the character’s densely packed unexpressed emotions to unfold on the page. Haunted by the childhood memory of her father’s death in the basement of her house while her mother ignored his entreaties for help, the narrator believes she relinquished her responsibility and failed to challenge her mother. As a single parent and head of household, she must confront her paralyzing guilt and establish her independence. Vafi’s characters are emblematic of many women in Iran, caught between tradition and modernity. Demystifying contemporary Iran by taking readers beyond the stereotypes and into the lives of individuals, Vafi is one of the most important voices in Iranian literature. My Bird heralds her eagerly anticipated introduction to an English-speaking audience.
Let Me Tell You Where I've Been
Author: Persis M. Karim
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
Until recently, Iranian literature has overwhelmingly been the domain of men. But the new hybrid culture of diaspora Iranians has produced a prolific literature by women that reflects a unique perspective and voice. Let Me Tell You Where I've Been is an extensive collection of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by women whose lives have been shaped and influenced by Iran's recent history, exile, immigration and the formation of new cultural identities in the United States and Europe. These writings represent an emerging and multi-cultural female sensibility. Unlike many flat media portrayals of Iranian women—as veiled, silenced—these writers offer a complex literary view of Iranian culture and its influences. These writers interrogate, challenge, and re-define notions of home and language and their work offers readers an experience of Iranian diaspora culture. Featuring over one hundred selections (two-thirds of which have never been published before) by more than fifty contributors--including such well-known writers as Gelareh Asayesh, Tara Bahrampour, Firoozeh Dumas, Roya Hakakian and Mimi Khalvati--the collection represents a substantial diversity of voices in this multicultural community. Divided into six sections, the book's themes of exile, family, culture resistance, and love, create a rich and textured view of the Iranian diaspora. The poems, short stories, and essays are suggestive of an important conversation about Iran, Iranian culture, the Persian and English languages, and the dual identities of many of its authors. This powerful collection is a tribute to the wisdom, insight, and sensitivity of women attempting to invent and articulate a literature of in-betweenness.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
Until recently, Iranian literature has overwhelmingly been the domain of men. But the new hybrid culture of diaspora Iranians has produced a prolific literature by women that reflects a unique perspective and voice. Let Me Tell You Where I've Been is an extensive collection of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by women whose lives have been shaped and influenced by Iran's recent history, exile, immigration and the formation of new cultural identities in the United States and Europe. These writings represent an emerging and multi-cultural female sensibility. Unlike many flat media portrayals of Iranian women—as veiled, silenced—these writers offer a complex literary view of Iranian culture and its influences. These writers interrogate, challenge, and re-define notions of home and language and their work offers readers an experience of Iranian diaspora culture. Featuring over one hundred selections (two-thirds of which have never been published before) by more than fifty contributors--including such well-known writers as Gelareh Asayesh, Tara Bahrampour, Firoozeh Dumas, Roya Hakakian and Mimi Khalvati--the collection represents a substantial diversity of voices in this multicultural community. Divided into six sections, the book's themes of exile, family, culture resistance, and love, create a rich and textured view of the Iranian diaspora. The poems, short stories, and essays are suggestive of an important conversation about Iran, Iranian culture, the Persian and English languages, and the dual identities of many of its authors. This powerful collection is a tribute to the wisdom, insight, and sensitivity of women attempting to invent and articulate a literature of in-betweenness.
Alive and Kicking
Author: Marjan Riahi
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781544022727
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
Alive and Kicking This collection of twenty short stories by ten leading Iranian women writers introduces many of them to English-speaking audiences for the first time. These are successful authors whose books are widely read and appreciated by Iranian readers. Some have won awards and many of their books have been reprinted multiple times.These writers live in different parts of the Islamic Republic of Iran and work in a wide range of professions. They write under difficult circumstances since all their works are scrutinised by the Ministry of Guidance before permission to publish is granted, often after substantial rewriting, cutting and editing. Getting published thus requires a great deal of energy and persistence, making the authors' efforts to keep Iranian culture alive even more admirable.The stories range over the recent past and the present and explore themes such as love and its ending, desire, friendship, the strains and frustrations of family life, the challenges of the workplace. Some are highly realistic while others are fantastic and surreal. The female characters in the stories are often strong and independent, sometimes angry and rebellious. In this way the collection provides a series of portraits of women's lives in modern-day Iran.
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781544022727
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
Alive and Kicking This collection of twenty short stories by ten leading Iranian women writers introduces many of them to English-speaking audiences for the first time. These are successful authors whose books are widely read and appreciated by Iranian readers. Some have won awards and many of their books have been reprinted multiple times.These writers live in different parts of the Islamic Republic of Iran and work in a wide range of professions. They write under difficult circumstances since all their works are scrutinised by the Ministry of Guidance before permission to publish is granted, often after substantial rewriting, cutting and editing. Getting published thus requires a great deal of energy and persistence, making the authors' efforts to keep Iranian culture alive even more admirable.The stories range over the recent past and the present and explore themes such as love and its ending, desire, friendship, the strains and frustrations of family life, the challenges of the workplace. Some are highly realistic while others are fantastic and surreal. The female characters in the stories are often strong and independent, sometimes angry and rebellious. In this way the collection provides a series of portraits of women's lives in modern-day Iran.
The Politics of Writing in Iran
Author: Kamran Talattof
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815628187
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Emerging in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a secular activity, Persian literature acquired its own modernity by redefining past aesthetic practices of identity and history. By analyzing selected work of major pre- and post-revolutionary literary figures, Talattof shows how Persian literary history has not been an integrated continuum but a series of distinct episodic movements shaped by shifting ideologies. Drawing on western concepts, modern Persian literature has responded to changing social and political conditions through complex strategies of metaphorical and allegorical representations that both construct and denounce cultural continuities. The book provides a unique contribution in that it draws on texts that demonstrate close affinity to such diverse ideologies as modernism, Marxism, feminism, and Islam. Each ideological standard has influenced the form, characterization, and figurative language of literary texts as well as setting the criteria for literary criticism and determining which issues are to be the focus of literary journals.
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815628187
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Emerging in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a secular activity, Persian literature acquired its own modernity by redefining past aesthetic practices of identity and history. By analyzing selected work of major pre- and post-revolutionary literary figures, Talattof shows how Persian literary history has not been an integrated continuum but a series of distinct episodic movements shaped by shifting ideologies. Drawing on western concepts, modern Persian literature has responded to changing social and political conditions through complex strategies of metaphorical and allegorical representations that both construct and denounce cultural continuities. The book provides a unique contribution in that it draws on texts that demonstrate close affinity to such diverse ideologies as modernism, Marxism, feminism, and Islam. Each ideological standard has influenced the form, characterization, and figurative language of literary texts as well as setting the criteria for literary criticism and determining which issues are to be the focus of literary journals.
Women's Autobiographies in Contemporary Iran
Author: Afsaneh Najmabadi
Publisher: Harvard CMES
ISBN: 9780932885050
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 92
Book Description
The four essays in this volume discuss the autobiographical writings of Iranian women. The contributors to the collection include William Hanaway, Michael Hillmann, and Farzaneh Milani. Milani asks why modern Persian literature, with its rich self-reflective tradition, has not produced many autobiographies, and what particular problems confront Iranian women engaging in autobiographical writing. Najmabadi discusses one of the earliest modern autobiographical writings by a woman, Taj os-Saltaneh’s Memories, and Hillman projects Forugh Farrokhzad’s poetry as an autobiographical voice. Hanaway investigates the possibilities of going beyond lack of Western-style autobiographical form and looking for what Persian literary forms and categories provide for the autobiographical voice.
Publisher: Harvard CMES
ISBN: 9780932885050
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 92
Book Description
The four essays in this volume discuss the autobiographical writings of Iranian women. The contributors to the collection include William Hanaway, Michael Hillmann, and Farzaneh Milani. Milani asks why modern Persian literature, with its rich self-reflective tradition, has not produced many autobiographies, and what particular problems confront Iranian women engaging in autobiographical writing. Najmabadi discusses one of the earliest modern autobiographical writings by a woman, Taj os-Saltaneh’s Memories, and Hillman projects Forugh Farrokhzad’s poetry as an autobiographical voice. Hanaway investigates the possibilities of going beyond lack of Western-style autobiographical form and looking for what Persian literary forms and categories provide for the autobiographical voice.