Mehraneh Ebrahimi

Mehraneh Ebrahimi is an assistant professor of English at York University where she lectures on Diaspora and World Literatures. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature from Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. She was born into a Persian family and had the good fortune of growing up and studying in different countries around the world, including Italy, Pakistan, Iran, and Canada. This nomadic, fluid lifestyle colored her analytical perspective, in addition to helping her achieve fluency in four languages. Shuttling between home and elsewhere, between self and Other, and between the position of being a citizen and that of being a migrant helped her understand that singling out a single enemy outside of the self as the sole cause of our misfortune is a defense mechanism to protect the weak self, that humanity is connected, and humans are responsible for each other’s miseries. Instead of spending a lifetime living in different countries, sometimes the journey can be inward, like reading a story about a little girl faced with war, revolution, and immigration. Reading about the tales of others can help create the shift in perspective that is so necessary to rescue humankind from the disastrous consequences of putting nations in binary opposition.