Orientalisation through paratexts: The covers of muslim memoirs

Abstract

The influx of memoirs by and about Iranian women has saturated the post-9/11 Western literary market. These memoirs, which emerged after 9/11 and the President Bush's 'Axis of Evil' speech addressed to Iran, North Korea and Iraq, are written to quench the curiosity of the Western readers. However many of these memoirists have adopted Western Orientalism framework in writing their discourse. They use the Iranian psyche, people, culture and religious worlds to reproduce the Western bias against the 'Other.' This portrayal of Western Orientalism 'otherness', which oftentimes begins right from the covers of the memoirs, can be called orientalisation through paratexts.