NESHAT, Shirin. Women of Allah.

(Turin, Italy): Marco Noire Editore, 1997. First edition. Softcover. 33.8cm by 24cm. Unpaginated. A superb photographic series examining the complexities of women’s identities within a shifting cultural landscape in the Middle East, viewed both through Western representations of Muslim women and through the more intimate registers of personal and religious conviction. The photographs confront a “paradoxical reality” through a haunting sequence of black-and-white images. Each image incorporates a number of recurring symbols associated with Western constructions of the Muslim world: the veil, the gun, the text, and the gaze. While these symbols have taken on particular resonance in the post-9/11 context, the series was created earlier and reflects broader cultural and political transformations in the region following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. A very good copy in photo-illustrated wrappers. Scarce.