Iranian Diaspora Literature of Women

180 Pages·2017·2.226 MB·English

by  Leila Samadi Rendy

Leila Samadi Rendy
Iranian Diaspora Literature of Women
Studien zum Modernen Orient
herausgegeben
von Gerd Winkelhane
Studien zum Modernen Orient 28
Leila Samadi Rendy
Iranian Diaspora Literature of Women
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For My Father

Abstract
Some years before and after the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, a
huge number of Iranians migrated to western countries due to social
and political problems. There is a significant body of literary and auto-
biographical works by Iranian writers in the Diaspora during the last
50 years. The early works are mostly social and political, as writing
about the private lives has been taboo, even in the diaspora. These lit-
erary writings has been analysed in Western academia to get a closer
view of the political and social conditions in Iran before and after the
Islamic revolution. However, in the last two decades, more literary and
autobiographical works have been concerned with the private aspect
of the lives of the characters in the Diaspora and the (trans)formation
of their identity and the linguistic and cultural hybridity. This hybrid-
ity and the identity issues become more significant in the works of wo-
men writers, as they are doubly marginalised as immigrants in the host
land and second sex within patriarchy. There have been only a few
critical works on the recent literary and autobiographical works of Ira-
nian female writers in the Diaspora. This work examines the relation-
ship between space, bilingualism, and writing, and female characters’
identity formation in the late literary productions of Iranian women in
the Diaspora, using post-colonial and postmodern theories of bilin-
gualism, space, autobiography and gender.
In this research, the works of poetry and prose published in the an-
thology Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the
Iranian Diaspora, edited by Persis M. Karim (2006), and the full text of
four memoirs, extracts from which are included in this work, are
chosen for the case study.
The first theme of this research is the significance of space and dis-
placement in the selected literary works. Here the private space of
home and the public spaces of city and homeland, and their significan-
ce for the gendered identity of the female characters, has been exami-
ned using post-colonial and post-modern theories.
The second focus of this research is bilingualism and its role in the
formation of the gendered identity of the female characters and narrat-
ors of the selected literary works. The generation and the community
to which the subjects are connected shape their identity and invest-
ments in language and cultural capital. This leads to the creation of a
personal English among the female characters and the use of English
to refer to specific subjects requiring the freedom associated with this
language.
The last theme of this research is the role of writing in identity for-
mation of the female characters and the characteristics of the selected
autobiographies and literary works of Iranian women in the diaspora.
As the narrators in some texts claim, they write to recover from trau-
mas and as a defense method against shame feelings. Besides, the sub-
ject searches for her ‘self’ in the process of writing. Stories of mothers
and motherhood as complements of the narratives of self, and expres-
sion of personal theories to avoid inferiorization are of other themes of
these works.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION....................................................................13
Introduction and Case Study................................................................................13
Research Questions.................................................................................................17
Background of the Study and Review of Literature........................................18
Methods and Outline..............................................................................................21
CHAPTER TWO: SPACE AND GENDER..........................................................33
Home and Gender...................................................................................................34
City and Gender......................................................................................................43
a. Gendered Identity in Iranian Cities.........................................................44
b. Western Cities and Gendered Identity....................................................56
Homeland and Gender...........................................................................................65
Conclusion................................................................................................................80
CHAPTER THREE: BILINGUALISM AND GENDER......................................82
Second Language Acquisition and Gender.......................................................83
Generations...............................................................................................................84
a. First Generation ...........................................................................................85
b. Second Generation.......................................................................................89
Writing in the Language of the Other................................................................97
a. Creation of Personal English.....................................................................98
b. Using English as the Language of Taboos and Secrets.....................101
Conclusion .............................................................................................................104
CHAPTER FOUR: WRITING AND GENDER.................................................106
Iranian Women and Writing...............................................................................106
Autobiographical Works of the Second Generation of Iranian
Female Writers in the Diaspora ...................................................................109
a. Victim Stories..............................................................................................110
b. Narratives of Shame/Guilt.......................................................................115
c. The Quest for Identity..............................................................................120
d. Narratives about Mother Figures...........................................................126
e. Expressing Personal Social and Political Views.................................133
Conclusion .............................................................................................................137
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION.......................................................................138
Summing Up...........................................................................................................138
Findings...................................................................................................................140
Appendix I: Selected Bibliography of the Literary Works
of Iranian Women in the Diaspora..............................................................145
Appendix II: Short Biographies of the Authors.............................................148
Works Cited............................................................................................................163
Index.........................................................................................................................176