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Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Booksby Azar Nafisi
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Azar Nafisi, a bold and inspired teacher, secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; some had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they removed their veils and began to speak more freely–their stories intertwining with the novels they were reading by Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, as fundamentalists seized hold of the universities and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the women in Nafisi’s living room spoke not only of the books they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Azar Nafisi’s luminous masterwork gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women’s lives in revolutionary Iran. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny, and a celebration of the liberating power of literature. Review:“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.” –SUSAN SONTAG Review:“Readers will have a new appreciation for the worn Nabokov and James titles on their bookshelves after reading Nafisi’s engaging memoir.” Minneapolis Star Tribune Review:“A memoir about teaching Western literature in revolutionary Iran, with profound and fascinating insights into both. A masterpiece.” BERNARD LEWIS, author of What Went Wrong? Review:“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.” –JACKI LYDEN, author of Daughter of the Queen of Sheba Review:“Brilliant . . . So much is right with this book, if not with this world.” The Boston Globe Review:“A quietly magnificent book . . . [Nafisi’s] passion is irresistible.” LA Weekly Review:“An inspiring account of an insatiable desire for intellectual freedom.” USA Today Review:“As timely as it is well-written . . . As the world seems to further divide itself into them and us, Nafisi reminds her readers of the folly of thinking in black and white.” –Cleveland Plain Dealer About the AuthorAZAR NAFISI is a visiting professor and the director of the Dialogue Project at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University. She has taught Western literature at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and the University of Allameh Tabatabai in Iran. In 1981 she was expelled from the University of Tehran after refusing to wear the veil. In 1994 she won a teaching fellowship from Oxford University, and in 1997 she and her family left Iran for America. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic and has appeared on countless radio and television programs. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two children. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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