Susan Nussbaum's debut novel, winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, is, as Rosellen Brown says, "a celebration of...
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mirandacryns, August 4, 2012 (view all comments by mirandacryns)
At 27 years old, I am a high school English teacher. Every day there is something that I realize I have no idea about, either Im too young to have experienced it, too old to be hip to it, or was too busy in high school and college following my passions to become well rounded. Either way, I have to praise this memoir for inspiring me, I have been urged to learn 40 years of Iranian history and custom, our current international relationship with the middle east, and how to teach memoir in a meaningful way. This book is beautiful and scary, Nafisi's voice echos brilliantly from the stories of being silenced. This book is beloved.
Rebekah Weakley, January 2, 2012 (view all comments by Rebekah Weakley)
It all began with my College class: Comics and Literature. We were assigned to read, "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi and I absolutely loved it. So, I began to look for other books about Iran and the time of the Religious Revolution. I came across "Reading Lolita in Tehran" in a Goodwill.
The book is written about other books that the author, Nafisi worked with and taught as an English Literature teacher in Tehran, Iran. Nafisi writes with a flair and style that draws the reader into her plot and her characters. I also think because all her stories are real and personal that the history of that time period becomes more fresh and alive.
I also enjoyed this book because it gave me personal insight into a historical time period that I was mostly unaware of. It also gives an insight into Islam as a religion and as a religious power house. Thus, combined with "Persepolis", I now have a fuller picture of Iran. I also plan to keep reading about Iran and have my mind further opened about different politics and cultures.
Nafisi's memoirs are so well written and enjoyable that I would recommend this book to all my family and friends.
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inmac21, January 2, 2011 (view all comments by inmac21)
Immediately after finishing this book I turned back to the first page and started it again. A magnificent book.
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Gypsi, June 6, 2010 (view all comments by Gypsi)
Nafisi has written not an autobiography, but a story of her love affair with certain books and authors. She divides her life into four important phases, and the four books or authors that influenced her during that time in her life. It is a mix of personal memories, important moments in Iranian history, what she was reading at the time and how it colored her impressions.
She begins with what would be the next-to-the-last sequentially, the start of her home class and the reading of Lolita. That Nafisi is an excellent literature professor shines through from the beginning. She doesn't merely mention the books, she discusses them, as though with a class, discussing plot, characters, details, meaning. I, who had never been interested in Lolita or Nabokov, became convinced of his worth solely due to her enthusiasm and passion for his works.
She follows with the Iranian revolution and the subsequent "trial" of Gatsby in her classroom. Henry James accompanies the times following the revolution, the war with Iraq, her feelings of uselessness and her return to teaching. She ends with Jane Austen, more about her home class, how she ended up in America and where all her "girls" are now.
Though this could have easily been a depressing book, about life in Iran, it is not. Instead, Nafisi has written about the beauty and hope of the novel, how it affected her and how she wanted it to affect her students.
Nafisi is a kindred spirit to all us ardent bibliophiles. She expresses in words the passion, exhilaration and transfiguration I often feel during and after reading a novel and has lit a fire in me to re-read several classics she mentioned. This is definitely a five star book!
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Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Used Trade Paper
Azar Nafisi
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$3.95
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Product details
384 pages
Random House Trade -
English9780812971064
Reviews:
"Review A Day"
by Mona Simpson, The Atlantic Monthly,
"There are certain books by our most talented essayists — I'm thinking in particular of Slouching Towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion, and Dakota, by Kathleen Norris — that, though not necessarily better than their other works, carry inside their covers the heat and struggle of a life's central choice being made and the price being paid, while the writer tells us about other matters, and leaves behind a path of sadness and sparkling loss. Reading Lolita in Tehran is such a book." (read the entire Atlantic review)
"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews,
"[W]ithout once sinking into sentimentality or making overly large claims for the relative might of the pen over the sword, Nafisi celebrates the power of literature to nourish free thought in climes inhospitable to it."
"Review"
by Susan Sontag,
"I was enthralled and moved by Azar Nafisi?s account of how she defied, and helped others to defy, radical Islam?s war against women. Her memoir contains important and properly complex reflections about the ravages of theocracy, about thoughtfulness, and about the ordeals of freedom — as well as a stirring account of the pleasures and deepening of consciousness that result from an encounter with great literature and with an inspired teacher."
"Review"
by Jacki Lyden, National Public Radio, author of Daughter of the Queen of Sheba,
"When I first saw Azar Nafisi teach, she was standing in a university classroom in Tehran, holding a bunch of red fake poppies in one hand and a bouquet of daffodils in the other, and asking, What is kitsch? Now, mesmerizingly, she reveals the shimmering worlds she created in those classrooms, inside a revolution that was an apogee of kitsch and cruelty. Here, people think for themselves because James and Fitzgerald and Nabokov sing out against authoritarianism and repression. You will be taken inside a culture, and on a journey, that you will never forget."
"Review"
by Margaret Atwood,
"Stunning...a literary life raft on Iran's fundamentalist sea...All readers should read it."
"Review"
by Geraldine Brooks,
“Anyone who has ever belonged to a book group must read this book. Azar Nafisi takes us into the vivid lives of eight women who must meet in secret to explore the forbidden fiction of the west. It is at once a celebration of the power of the novel and a cry of outrage at the reality in which these women are trapped. The ayatollahs don't know it, but Nafisi is one of the heroes of the Islamic Republic. For many years, she eschewed the easier path of exile, and became one of the brave band of intellectuals and artists who stayed on, stubbornly struggling to save the cultured soul of her remarkable country.”
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
Reading Lolita in Tehran is the astonishing true story of young women who met in secret each week to read and talk about forbidden Western classics — and their lives and loves — in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
"Synopsis"
by Random,
Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisis living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the liberating power of literature.
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