Consuming Words: Memoirs by Iranian Jewish Women

Within the emerging genre of Iranian women's memoirs, Farideh Goldin's Wedding Song (2003) and Roya Hakakian's Journey from the Land of No (2004) are distinctive in that their authors are Jewish. While Goldin and Hakakian share the nostalgia and sense of loss expressed by their fellow memoirists in exile, they offer a nuanced reading of Iranian culture that reflects their dual consciousness of being both Iranian and Jewish, identities that have sometimes been in conflict. Their differing accounts and impressions of growing up in observant Jewish families testify to the diversity of Iranian Jews. In addition to serving as historians of Iran's recent past—Goldin relates events leading up to the Islamic Revolution, while Hakakian relates events that took place during and after it—they critique and commemorate Iranian Jewish life, especially the lives of women. As women writers, they trace the importance of words and stories in their lives, and the destructive role of both censorship and self-censorship.