Maryam Madjidi: Multiple Belongings, Authenticity, and the Dilemmas of Self-Acceptance

This chapter examines marginality, authenticity, and self-acceptance in two nomadic autobiographical texts by Maryam Madjidi: Marx et la poupée (2017) and Pour que je m’aime encore (2021). The first novel takes place between Iran and Paris, with periods in Beijing and Istanbul. The second text flits between the bland and socially marginal banlieue in Drancy, and the alluring centre of Paris. Madjidi uses humour as a sharp tool of social analysis, particularly in Pour que je m’aime encore, where social and gender issues are critiqued. Gender inequalities are strongly evident in Marx et la poupée, which condemns the violence of patriarchal constraints on women in Iran. In these autobiographical texts, the childhood years are beset by loss and instability and a tormented relationship with roots (continuing into early womanhood), whereas the teenage period focuses more on self-questioning and self-testing. Both texts are highly embodied narratives, where the narrators peel off masks of inauthenticity. Educational environments are presented as sites of attempted self-definition. However, the ultimate self-assertion comes through writing. The analysis in this chapter emphasises Madjidi’s memorial form of écriture engagée, in relation to her need to bear witness to injustice and to other people’s pain, as well as her own, which she also does in widely accessible form on social media.