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

Article Excerpt
A World Between: Poems, Short Stories, and Essays by Iranian-Americans. Ed. Persis M. Karim and Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami. New York: George Braziller, 1999. 286 pages. $30 hardcover; $18.50 paper.

Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora. Ed. Persis M. Karim. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas, 2006. xxx + 352 pages. $49.95 hardcover; $24.95 paper.

Ethnic literary anthologies can be understood in terms of a historical process of revision. Such anthologies invent and re-invent cultural identity through literary politics that attempt to push the boundaries of, for example, Chicano identity into Chicana/o and Latina/o identities. Two Iranian American literary anthologies published only seven years apart follow a similar process within their own particular political context. Each anthology is compelling and complex on its own terms, but the ways in which they speak to each other present a fascinating development in a dynamic emergent North American ethnic experience.

A World Between is explicitly offered as a literary talking cure for a younger generation. Persis Karim and Mohammad Khorrami present literary production by Iranian Americans as both self-help and social corrective. Karim...