Reconstruction of diversity, Iranian inclusion, Kurdish exclusion and fictions of diasporic agency: An unhyphenated citizenship in Daughters of Smoke and Fire

Abstract

This article explores Ava Homa’s novel, Daughters of Smoke and Fire (2020), examining how the Islamic government of Iran has stifled religious and linguistic minorities within the constructed national identity. Amidst this context, authors like Homa challenge the Aryan race as the foundation of Iranian national identity, striving to carve out a diasporic space within Iranian–Canadian literature that embraces Iran’s marginalized ethnicities, with a particular focus on Iranian–Kurdish identity.