Iranian Women’s Life Narratives

Abstract

In this article I consider the production, reception, co-optation, and market commodification of Iranian women’s life narratives. I argue that although life narratives in their western sense were literary misfits in Iran until the middle of the twentieth century, the genre has exploded in recent decades, especially in diaspora. I trace the trajectory of my own evolving views on autobiographies and biographies, and ask why, in the unprecedented flourishing of writings about Iran in the U.S., a category of books, which I label “hostage narratives,” portray the Iranian woman as a prisoner without parole and reprieve. I discuss four main factors that have contributed to the popular appeal of these best-sellers: the familiarity of captivity as a theme, the allure of life narratives generally, a relative lack of translated works from Iran (and other parts of the Middle East), and American audiences’ genuine desire to learn more about the region.