Let Me Tell You Where I Have Been: Reviewed by Jasmin Darznik

Let Me Tell You Where I Have Been: New Writings By Women of the Iranian Diaspora. Reviewed by Jasmin Darznik.
Edited by Persis M. Karim
University of Arkansas Press, $24.95.

Not so long ago there were no "Iranian-Americans" and nothing called "Iranian- American literature."
But now an extraordinary new book proves that a dynamic and multifaceted Iranian-American identity is being written into American literature. Edited by Persis Karim, Let Me Tell You Where I Have Been gathers over a hundred selections of poetry and prose by more than fifty writers from the Iranian diaspora. With humor, rage, eloquence, and compassion, its contributors give voice to what it means for Iranian women to live-and write--in the West today.
After the publication of the 1999 anthology A World Between: Poems, Short Stories, and Essays by Iranian-Americans, Karim, a professor of literature, found herself acting as an "accidental literary midwife." Hundreds of writers were suddenly sending her letters and submissions. Overwhelmingly, their authors were women. Let Me Tell You Where I Have Been is the result of this literary midwifery, the first book devoted exclusively to writings by women of the Iranian diaspora.
The book is organized into five sections: "Home Stories," "For Tradition," "Woman's Duty," "Axis of Evil," and "Beyond." Some of the names here will be familiar to many readers: Tara Bahrampour, Azadeh Moaveni, Firoozeh Dumas. These are the authors who've climbed the best-seller lists in the last few years-the spirited translators of the in-between lives of Iranian immigrants.
But some of the most unforgettable entries are by lesser-known poets and writers taking dead aim at all manner of social and literary taboos. In Farnoosh Seifoddini's poem "Dokhtar-e Irani," a mother and daughter's conversation as they clean sabzi becomes a reflection on chastity-and hypocrisy. Marjan Kamali's short story "The Gift" opens with a mother announcing that she has found the perfect gift for her daughter's twenty-fifth birthday: "His name is Mr. Dashti. . .Two degrees, a Ph.D. and an M.B.A." What follows is a hilarious-and heartfelt-tale about a young Iranian-American woman's adventures in khastegari.
There are also biting political commentaries from a range of perspectives and sensibilities. Karim's own poem "The Execution of Atefeh" is a searing tribute to a young Iranian woman killed for the crimes of her "indecent" body and even more "indecent" tongue. In a rather different vein, Beatrice Motamedi's essay "When Toys Are Us" dares to imagine the day when Iranian-America men stand proudly beside their "bros" in the American military.
And then there are poems like Zara Houshmand's "Nazr," which remind us of nothing so much as the miracle of art in these clamorous times.

In the space of three hundred pages, Let Me Tell You Where I Have Been manages to capture the vibrant multiplicity of a literature-and people-engaged not only with the most timely topics of the day, but also with some of the most common and timeless subjects of human life.

"Nazr"
by Zara Houshmand
(from Let Me Tell You Where I Have Been: New Writings By
Women of the Iranian Diaspora)

It has been so long,
How will you know me?

I am the one standing still in the rush
scanning the screen again and again
trying to find
a believable destination.

I am the one who has spread her skirts on the grass
Like a picnic cloth, saying:
Here is trust.
And honesty.
And kindness.
Come feast.

I am the one tying poems
To the branches of a tree
whose leaves have fallen.