In a Persian Mirror: Images of the West and Westerners in Iranian Fiction

The extreme anti-Western actions and attitudes of Iranians in the 1980s astonished and dismayed the West, which has characterized the Iranian positions as irrational and inexplicable. In this groundbreaking study of images of the West in Iranian literature, however, M. R. Ghanoonparvar reveals that these attitudes did not develop suddenly or inexplicably but rather evolved over more than two centuries of Persian-Western contact.

Notable among the authors whose works Ghanoonparvar discusses are Sadeq Hedayat, M. A. Jamalzadeh, Hushang Golshiri, Gholamhoseyn Sa'edi, Simin Daneshvar, Moniru Ravanipur, Sadeq Chubak, and Jalal Al-e Ahmad. This survey significantly illuminates the sources of Iranian attitudes toward the West and offers many surprising discoveries for Western readers, not least of which is the fact that Iranians have often found Westerners to be as enigmatic and incomprehensible as we have believed them to be.

Author: M. R. Ghanoonparvar
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 04/01/1993
Pages: 191
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 9.04h x 6.05w x 0.51d
ISBN: 9780292727618

About the Author
A native of Iran, M. R. Ghanoonparvar is an assistant professor of Persian language and literature at the University of Texas at Austin.