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A moment of standing: A feminist lens on the stories of Taqi Wahedi
By Rayhana Bayani*, translated into English by Rustam Seerat
The writer and journalist Taqi Wahedi stands out as one of the most successful Afghan refugee storytellers in Iran. He has primarily focused his writing on short stories about migration, social and cultural issues, war, and women’s issues.
By examining the stories in the collection “A Moment of Standing,” published by Amu in 2019, one can observe Wahedi’s concerns about women’s rights, his critical perspectives on the traditions, beliefs, and anti-women laws in 1990s Afghanistan, and immigration issues in Iran.
In the story “Shirin,” a young immigrant girl by that name works and lives with her family in a brick kiln neighbourhood. A fellow immigrant worker named Qadir, who resides nearby, has proposed to Shirin. Although Shirin is interested in him, her brother, Safdar, strongly opposes their marriage. As she’s religious, Shirin only talks to Qadir, yet Safdar beats her for that action, claiming she has become impure for interacting with him.
Finally, as her family is on the verge of relocating to a nearby area, Shirin bravely decides to escape with Qadir. Among the female protagonists created by Taqi Wahedi in his stories, Shirin is the only character…
