Memory Through a Child’s Eyes
I recently read Everything Sad is Untrue: A True Story, an impactful memoir written by Iranian American author and refugee, Daniel Nayeri. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a powerful and thought-provoking read. Thank you to Nan Doud for recommending this to me!
As a UX researcher, I'm always eager to expand my perspective and learn from different experiences. Reading about Nayeri's journey has felt at turns both familiar and foreign to me. Being Iranian American, I can relate to many of his experiences but, on the flip side, some of his experiences feel so new and jarring to me. This is the beauty of reading such a personal account of a person's own history tucked into History with a capital H. In a history textbook, you may read one paragraph about the Iranian Revolution of 1979, where the accounts are generalized and factual and lean into what the majority experienced. But it's so impactful to read how that event has affected so many Iranians in so many different ways and changed the trajectory of their lives on a personal level.
Everything Sad is Untrue is a beautiful example of how storytelling can shape our understanding of the world. Nayeri masterfully weaves together his personal story with Iranian mythology and folklore. He captures the elementary school experience as an Iranian American so well; it is probably a very familiar experience for many of us (immigrants and children of immigrants) who grew up feeling Othered and different and out of place amongst our classmates and neighbors. Then, in the next paragraph, he may be telling us bits and pieces from the Persian epic, the Shahnameh. His skillful use of juxtaposition pits the shiny sights, sounds, and smells of his childhood in Iran against the sharp-edged sights, sounds, and smells of his childhood in Ohio against the dreamy sights, sounds, and smells of Iranian folklore. And, as a fellow Iranian American, I also intimately recognize the tragedy of feeling both so close to and so far from our motherland. Nayeri captures this sense of disjointedness so well, and it's a poignant reminder of the importance of preserving and sharing our stories.
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Purchase your copy of Daniel’s book here