Feminist Historical Writing in Postrevolutionary Iran

Abstract

Abstract This article argues that Mahmoud Dowlatabadi’s Missing Soluch and Parinoush Saniee’s My Share are landmark works of feminist historical writing in Iran that disrupt official narratives in the country regarding the revolutionary project. Despite the different positions Dowlatabadi and Saniee occupy in the Persian literary field, both Missing Soluch and My Share reflect the ethos of the 1979 Revolution in some way, one its euphoric beginning and the other its complicated aftermath. The article argues that both novelists pursue an innovative genre of historical writing by contesting official historical-masculinist narratives of their time. Missing Soluch offers readers a working-class feminist politics on the eve of revolutionary upheaval. My Share constructs a feminist politics critical of the postrevolutionary nation’s betrayal of Iranian women’s liberation despite women’s critical participation in the 1979 Revolution. Dowlatabadi anticipates the tensions between gender politics and the postrevolutionary nation, while Saniee makes that tension explicit as part of a feminist critique of historical erasure.