Literature of the Iranian Diaspora

This course examines poetry and prose produced by authors of Iranian descent living outside of Iran. The focus will be on works composed in English that have appeared since the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79. The course will examine recurrent themes in Iranian diasporic writing such as memory, childhood, nostalgia, identity, rebellion, belonging, and return. The texts selected for detailed discussion are almost all by women writers, reflecting the fact that the Iranian expatriate literary scene is dominated by female poets and novelists. Special attention will be paid to those novels that have become best-sellers in North America and Europe, and which have provoked the most intense reactions from scholarly and writerly communities in the West. As well as texts originally written in English, translations of pieces composed in Persian and French will also be discussed. Although focused on the Iranian immigrant experience, this course seeks to locate Iranian diasporic writing within the context of the broader non-western diasporic literary scene in the US, UK, and France.