Nuclear Deal

Author: Nilufar Karimi

Publisher: Noemi Press (2021)

The poems in Nuclear Deal respond to the construction and breakdown of the US-Iran Nuclear Deal and the consequences that follow. Exploring the role of daily language in the formation of neocolonial relationships, Karimi erases—and in this process, makes visible—text from the official agreement, threading through its negative spaces personal histories (and futures) of exchange. In its plight to exist outside of violent and performative cycles of national negotiation, this book challenges both lawmaker and storymaker, and offers translation as a potential resource for exponential witnessing. Nuclear Deal utilizes what it can—loose photographs, book covers, oral tales, fragments of journals and song—then translates and re-translates to react to the inherent fissures in what the original Deal calls an exclusively peaceful plan of action.