When writing about life in a particular country, particularly when that country is not well-known globally, or when the previous writings about that particular country are either outdated or unbalanced, there lies some importance in portraying that country with sensitivity, with balance.

When that country is not your native country, perhaps it is less important; writing as an expat is rarely balanced, and readers are aware of the outsider’s view. But, when writing as a insider, it seems that the responsibility is on your shoulders to portray your country in a positive light, even if your country hasn’t been so kind to you.

Have you read Reading Lolita in Tehran? It’s a lovely book; Azar Nafisi is a native Iranian who, despite spending quite a bit of time in the U.S., lived in Iran during the early days of the revolution (and beyond). Slowly but surely, her rights were stripped from her - forced to cover herself completely (and, might I add, un-Islamically), forced to enter the university from a separate door, her satellite TV seized as contraband. Worse yet, her neighborhood bombed. And during that time, after leaving her job and holing herself up at home, she managed to put together an all-female reading group, hence the title of the book. Her group read all sorts of books which were banned in Iran at the time, as well as some which were not. I recall Lolita, Daisy Miller, and The Great Gatsby as three such books.

Fatemah Keshavarz is also an Iranian writer and professor of Persian and Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis. Her new book, Jasmine and Stars: Reading More than Lolita in Tehran, is (as she describes herself) a “cultural handshake” with Iran. In this interview, Keshavarz discusses her book as well as what she calls the “New Orientalist” narrative, a category in which she places Reading Lolita in Tehran…

…Which, despite not having read Jasmine and Stars, I find scorchingly unfair. Nafisi, as a biographer (her book can be categorized as semi-autobiographical, or autobiographical narrative), has the right to invoke her personal feelings. As a writer, she is free from the responsibility of delivering a balanced perspective of Iran.

Now, to be fair, I suppose it’s worth noting that I, and probably all of this blog’s readership, are not the average Anglophone reader and have a more balanced perspective of Islam, the Middle East/North Africa, or Islamic countries. We are probably more knowledgable about global issues than your average reader of a New York Times bestseller. And Keshavarz makes excellent points about filling the gaps in our information sources, something in which I firmly believe. She tells us to read translated fiction (or learn another language - although I doubt I’ll ever be fluent enough to enjoy fiction in any language other than English), meet people…all certainly important in understanding the world, the universe.

What I cannot get behind, however, is her invalidation of Nafisi’s book. Nafisi was writing about her own experience, her own perspective. I’ve read a lot of fiction and non-fiction from developing or lesser-known countries - but should I hold Tsitsi Dangarembga responsible for the world’s perspective of 1960s Zimbabwe? Should Fatima Mernissi hold the key to the world’s understanding of Morocco? If I were to write a book about my loath for the Bush administration but were to leave out all of the wonderful freedoms that come with being American, would my perspective be too unbalanced, too unfair?

Keshavarz makes good points, and I truly look forward to reading her book, but I don’t believe that one can be held responsible for leaving out aspects of a society. A perspective is just that - a perspective - and no one can take it away from you.

(Thanks to Forever Under Construction, who reposted the interview which inspired this post)