Nasrin Rahimieh Livres

Missing Persians serves to articulate in elegant, vibrant prose the disparate and displaced narratives of five Persian subjects. Nasrin Rahimieh's complex and nuanced arguments effectively demonstrate the links that her five figures have to a stable Persian identity—complicated by their experiences of travel, exile, conversion, and social change. Rahimieh delineates the captivating histories of "missing" Persians from the sixteenth century to modern times and defines the arbitrary generic boundaries that isolate Persian biographies, autobiographies, travelogues, and social histories. Balancing their documentary and historical value with creative and fictional elements, she reads them as individual engagements with broader questions of Persian identity at different moments of the nation's history. As modes of self-expression, these texts reveal both remnants of traditional Persian literary forms and new styles adopted through translations and readings in European literature and history. Even as it sheds new light on crucial points in cultural self-definition, Missing Persians offers a fresh look at traditional institutions, the role of women, and Persia's turbulent struggle to enter modernity on its own terms.

Exploring the complexities of Iranian culture, this work analyzes literature, music, graphic art, film, and oral narratives from both pre- and post-1979 revolution periods. It highlights the contradictions and contested claims to culture that arise from both within Iran and the diaspora, emphasizing how these elements shape our understanding of Iranian identity. By revealing overlooked nuances in cultural production, it offers a critical re-examination of collective cultural concepts and the spaces for new expressions within Iranian culture.