Customer Reviews

A World Between: Poems, Short Stories, and Essays by Iranian-Americans

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This anthology is long overdue and offers an important look at the experiences of Iranians on the North American continent during the past two decades. This powerful and subtle collection offers both a literary and sociologically-based (without appearing either academic or polemical) account and understanding of this relatively new ethnic group. The poems, short stories, and essays pay tribute to the experiences of loss and longing, but also offering a more positive view of Iran and Iranian people--that finally challenges the long-held views of the media that depict Iranians as fanatical and without self-reflection. "A World Between" can and must be read with its historical context in mind. It is not simply a bleak vision of those who left and are in exile, but of those who struggle to reconcile both American and Iranian culture and to bring them into dialogue. The book initiates a new literary culture, but further elucidates for Americans the sometimes painful and irreconciable realities of history, migration, and assimilation. A must-read! And what a cover! Gorgeous!

"A World Between: Poems, Short Stories, and Essays by Iranian-Americans," edited by Persis M. Karim and Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami, is an excellent anthology which greatly enriches the world of ethnic American literature. The pieces in this collection deal with many issues: language, biculturalism and the anxieties of assimilation, family ties, male-female relationships, Islamic fundamentalism, the role of Zoroastrians as a religious minority, war and its aftermath, etc. Although many such issues are specific to Iranian-Americans, others are universal to all "ethnic" Americans. The stories take place in both Iran and the United States, and one even takes place in France.

Some of my favorite pieces in this book include the following: "Made You Mine, America," Ali Zarrin's joyful poem which invokes both Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes; Mariam Salari's humorous short-short story "Ed McMahon Is Iranian"; Ramin M. Tabib's story "Tuesdays," about two Iranian-Americans in the L.A. club scene; Nazanin Sioshansi's essay "The Suffocating Sense of Injustice," about Zoroastrians in Iran; and Siamak Namazi's fascinating essay "Finding Peace in the Iranian Army," about an Iranian citizen who returns to fulfill his military obligation after living in the United States.

"A World Between" really opened my eyes to some of the pain and beauty of the world(s) of Iranian-Americans. This anthology would be ideal both for classroom use and individual reading. For a fascinating complementary text, try "Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican Writings," edited by Roberto Santiago.

When searching for a book- for my cultural anthropology class, I found this incredible and extraordinary book. I am Mexican, and my boyfriend is Iranian. Hence, sometimes it was difficult to comprehend many things about his culture, but this book really helped me to understand and appreciate Iranian culture. He is more American than Iranian, but he has faced the ongoing negotiation between his past and present, his native home and his adopted home I will recommend this book to anyone who is interested in achieving a personal enrichment and wants to see our modern world with different eyes.

I am 1st generation American. I grew up drinking tea and hearing the stories of Ferdowsi but it didn't seem to capture me completely into my father's culture.

When I came across this book, I fell in love with my culture! I understand so much more of my father's past, his sorrows, his joys, and his beliefs. I also learned more about myself.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Iranian culture!

The poetry, short stories, and essays are presented in a knock-out, gorgeous cover and poignantly give voice to a new generation of those among the United State's later-burgeoning ethnic groups. This work is to be celebrated as an important contribution to the body of work chronicling the American immigrant experience and the identity struggles of those immigrants and their progeny.

"The Iranian-American community has had extraordinary stories to tell since long before the Iranian Revolution in 1979, but those stories never really became public and Iranians often seemed the most invisible of new Americans. The generation of writers represented in this anthology, which has come of age since the revolution, is changing that. They are not just aware of themselves as writers with a new vision but also as observers of themselves with a palpable need to forge a public identity. The points of view collected in A World Between are by turns confessional, lyrical, Whitmanesque, anecdotal, and Proustian, and they are haunted by a common project of recording a senstibility that simply has not existed on paper before."

---Michael Beard, Professor of English, University of North Dakota and author of Hedayat's Blind Owl as a Western Novel

I read this one soon after it came out--and it informs some of my thinking about current events in and around the Persian Gulf. I'd encourage it for the non-Iranian American who lived through the 'Iranian hostage crisis' period especially. Poignant.

When searching for a book- for my cultural anthropology class, I found this incredible and extraordinary book. I am Mexican, and my boyfriend is Iranian. Hence, sometimes it was difficult to comprehend many things about his culture, but this book really helped me to understand and appreciate Iranian culture. He is more American than Iranian, but he has faced the ongoing negotiation between his past and present, his native home and his adopted home I will recommend this book to anyone who is interested in achieving a personal enrichment and wants to see our modern world with different eyes.

A World Between is a moving witness to the creativity of a new generation of Iranian-Americans. Elizabeth W. Fernea, University of Texas at Austin

A World Between is a moving witness to the creativity of a new generation of Iranian-Americans. Elizabeth W. Fernea, University of Texas at Austin