A Portrait in an Interview (Female Iranian Emigrant Writers)

• Mzia Burjanadze ^[1]
  1. [1] Tbilisi State University

     Tbilisi State University

     Georgia

     
• Localización: Actas del X congreso de la Sociedad Española de Iranología (SEI): celebrado en Tbilisi los días 20 y 21 de octubre de 2022 / Tea Vardosanidze (ed. lit.), Gerardo Matallana Medina (ed. lit.), 2024, ISBN 978-9941-36-204-0, págs. 44-57
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto Completo Libro (pdf)
• Resumen

  • The issue of female writers is quite complicated in present-day Iranian reality. Another topical issue is emigration. Taking this into account, it is extremely interesting to observe the life and works of female Iranian writers in emigration. As it is impossible to embrace this ample literary material in one paper, I have focused on the interviews given by female emigrant writers.Female writers have left their homeland for diverse reasons. Yet, their emigration is mostly related to inevitability. Many of them have been forced to leave their motherland because of the political situation.Some female writers have not been banished. Their emigration seems to be caused by their personal choice. However, the real reason is severe reality. In this case, their emigration is caused by the desire to avoid war and revolution and bring up their children in a safe environment.In some cases, the emigration of female Iranian writers was based on the decisions of their spouses. The women automatically followed their husbands to foreign countries.Representatives of the first generation of Iranian writers, who were scattered among different countries, wrote mostly in Persian and published their works in their host countries. Only a few of them attempted to release their books in Iran.Due to various reasons, a major portion of emigrant writers, especially their second generation, prefer to write in the languages of their host countries.The themes of female Iranian emigrant writers and their broad spectrum, deserve interest. The authors who write in Persian and intend to publish their books in Iran, select the themes very carefully, avoiding political complications.The works of female emigrant writers are either translated into different languages or written in the languages of their host countries. These works attract readers’ attention because they reflect the social life of women in the Islamic world. Apart from political issues, the main themes of these literary works are related to the search of identity and one’s place in the Western world.Farzaneh Milani, US-based writer and scholar, characterizes female Iranian emigrants as follows: „They know the value of difference and diversity. They stand on the boundary between Iran and the rest of the world and present a new kind of Persian literature on the international arena. Sometimes they are disoriented between two languages, two cultures and two identities”.