Writing Outside the Veil is the first full-length study of Iranian immigrant literature. The phenomenal success of Azar Nafisi?s 2002 memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran, followed by a spate of recent bestsellers like Funny in Farsi, Lipstick Jihad, and Persepolis, marks a period of unprecedented interest in writing by women of the Iranian diaspora. Largely ignored through the 80s and 90s, in the post-9/11 period Iranian immigrant women have emerged as important agents in framing how American readers see and interpret not only the history, politics, and culture of Iran but of the greater contemporary Middle East.

Contextualizing Iranian immigrant literature within three historical crisis points (The Hostage Crisis, The First Gulf War, and the events of 9/11), I present close readings of memoirs, plays, and novels written mostly in English within the Iranian diaspora over the last twenty-eight years. I argue that the Iranian diaspora's current treatments of culture, religion, history, and gender must be considered as a stage in an ethnic literature long in the making; to this end I stress the importance of reading recent popular titles in relation to earlier works as well as to much less visible texts. In this survey I consider how Iranian immigrant women have variously positioned themselves with respect to traditional religious and cultural prohibitions as well as to discrimination in their adopted homelands; I detail the multiple challenges to literary production and reception posed by a period of sustained tension between the U.S. and Iranian governments; and, finally, I investigate the kinds of “homes” Iranian immigrant writers envision for Middle Eastern women living in contemporary Western societies. Authors discussed here include Sattareh Farman Farmaian, Shusha Guppy, Azadeh Moaveni, Gelareh Asayesh, Tara Bahrampour, Farnoosh Moshiri, Gina Nahai, and Marjane Satrapi.