Alternative Readings: Approaching Iranian Writing in English as Postcolonial Literature

Abstract

This paper draws on various readings of colonial and post-colonial theories to approach diasporic Iranian literature in English through a post-colonial framework. It examines the development of this literature in response to domineering and hegemonic forces within and beyond Iran, and highlights the techniques that some writers engage with as a means to reframe and rewrite certain discourses of representation. In specific pays attention to the way certain writers reconstruct and re-imagine representation through engagement and rewriting of history, discursive and physical transgression and elements of magic realism. This paper situates the importance of this literature within the larger framework in which it is emerging, arguing for its perpetual social and political impact in the way Iran are seen and see themselves now and in the future in the West.