Books can be a great way to armchair travel. A few hours in the head of a foreign national can tell you about their values, habits, and struggles. This is especially worthwhile when it comes to cultures you will never experience firsthand. Given the ongoing political tensions between the US and Iran, I won’t ever get there. But a few books have given me a sense of it.
1.
The cover of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis says it all: it’s the story of an Iranian girl who lived through the overthrow of the Shah and had to endure the repressive Iranian revolution. Her parents were Marxist activists on the front lines of the resistance and we see these events through Marjane’s growing awareness as she goes from girl to teen. Few things are simple: as a religious Muslim, Marjane respects the veil, but she has also grown accustomed to sartorial choice under modern Iran. All of this is an engrossing story drawn as a graphic novel. I learned a lot about both the political and cultural history of a country I will never visit.
2.
Picking up a few years after Persepolis leaves off, Not Without My Daughter is a harrowing memoir about domestic violence and the ways that Iranian law favors men. After reluctantly agreeing to visit her husband’s homeland, Betty Mahmoody finds herself a prisoner. Her husband seizes her passport and declares that the family will stay in Iran. This is a genuinely gripping premise and as Betty attempts to organize an escape plan, we discover an underground resistance willing to help her escape. Not everyone in Iran is happy with the changes since the revolution and some will assist with illegal border crossing. In a harrowing final sequence, Betty and her daughter are driven to the Turkish border where they must attempt to cross undercover of night. I stayed up half the night turning pages to see if they would make it to the US embassy in Istanbul.
We see glimpses of Iran as Betty is stopped at checkpoints to have her veil measured and in the resistance members she meets.
Persepolis and Not Without My Daughter are two books that both show us a bit about Iran. Both are worth reading.
Books Smitten 