My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices (Paperback)

~ Lila Azam Zanganeh (Editor) "The story I want to tell begins at the Tehran airport, decades ago, when at the age of thirteen I was sent away to England..." (more)
Key Phrases: Islamic Republic, Mohammad Reza, Taste of Cherry (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This timely little book offers a thoughtful, wide-ranging and captivating introduction to a dynamic country most Americans still regrettably associate with romantic-exotic or religious-fanatical stereotypes. Centering on questions of identity and subjectivity in and outside Iran's Islamic Republic, the 15 prominent indigenous and ex-pat voices showcased in this collection include bestselling authors Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran), Azadeh Moaveni (Lipstick Jihad) and Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), as well as renowned filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, Oscar-nominated actress Shoreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog) and acclaimed visual artist Shirin Neshat. The brief, often breezy essays, reminiscences, reportage and interviews overturn the facile image of Iran as a single, homogenous entity, providing animated discussions of politics, sex, art, women's rights, racism, poetic culture, underground nightlife, Tehran's Jewish community, censorship, economic inequality and cross-cultural (mis)understanding under a regime that is highly oppressive but continually subverted. Arranged and framed with care by editor Zanganeh (and featuring original art by Satrapi), the book's contents resist an overarching, dogmatic point of view, presenting instead an open-ended invitation to dialogue. Readers will find this volume complex but accessible; it reveals the human stories behind the veil of the headlines. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

A seemingly devout cleaning lady sweeps a client's living room while pornography plays on the TV. A comp-lit class analyzes Milan Kundera's Identity (1998) in a translation deleting two major components, sex and gender equality. Women's clothing mannequins gradually lose their femininity, including their faces, replaced by cardboard disks, and their hands, replaced by cylinders. Of such is life in Iran's capital, Tehran, home, at least originally, of most of the artists and intellectuals contributing to this collection. Together, they raise the flag of hope for a freer culture, though the only basis they show for that hope is their and their peers' talent and integrity. Reza Aslan, author of No god but God (2005), ruefully acknowledges that, despite Tehranians' disdain for the mullahs--a taxi is as likely to run one down as pick him up, he says--many more Iranians want the "mullahcracy." Other imaginative and provocative voices herein include filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, Oscar-nominated actress Shohbeh Aghdashloo, and graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis, 2003). Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 132 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (April 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807004634
• ISBN-13: 978-0807004630
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #297,223 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A complicated conversation, June 20, 2006

By	Maureen R. Johnston (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes understands that the articulation of Iran must be incomplete--that the contributors to this volume, women and men, give us their conversations, their essays, their reminiscences, is a gracious endeavor to color and shade a contemporary depiction of Iran which is very black and white. The voices in this book are varied and intelligent, and their stories offer a complicated look at a country, a history, nationalism, and the very notion of `home.' I loved it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Iranian eye opener, September 11, 2007

By	P. Bennett "octohorse" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was surprised by what I found inside, and a bit shocked. Iran
has two cultures living within each other. There is a desperate air
of frustration of a people forced to live within the confines of
policies dictated by fundamentalism that is an uncomfortable fit
given the history of the country. Definitely recommend it.

3.0 out of 5 stars Uneven, July 26, 2009

By	S. K. Adams (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Uneven collection of short stories, essays, and interviews by/with leading Iranian creative types. The personal stories are the most compelling, while some of the critical essays read like undergraduate assignments. One sometimes gets the feeling that all these people know each other and are presenting a very small picture of the state of current Iranian culture.

Recommended for the good bits, but there are much better books out there on this subject (by many of the contributors).