Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [189]
“An intimate memoir of life under a repressive regime and a celebration of the vitality of literature. . . . As rich and profound as the novels Nafisi teaches.”
—The Miami Herald
“An inspiring account of an insatiable desire for intellectual freedom.”
—USA Today
“Transcends categorization as memoir, literary criticism or social history, though it is superb as all three. . . . Nafisi has produced an original work on the relationship between life and literature.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Nafisi’s passion for books is infectious, and her description of the
effect of the revolution on its people is unforgettable.”
—Denver Rocky Mountain News
“[A] sparkling memoir . . . A spirited tribute both to the classics of world literature and to resistance against oppression.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Nafisi artfully intertwines her own coming-of-age in pre-Revolutionary Tehran with the daily frustrations of her pupils. . . . [She] relates her girls’ moving stories with great sympathy.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“[Nafisi] reminds us why we read in the first place.”
—Newsday
“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
“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
“Nafisi’s writing has painterly qualities. . . . She is able to capture a moment and describe it with ease and melancholy. . . . Reading Lolita in Tehran is much more than a literary memoir; it becomes a tool for teaching us how to construe literature in a new, more meaningful way.”
—The Library Journal
“Brilliant . . . So much is right with this book, if not with this world.”
—The Boston Globe
“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
“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?
“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.”
—GERALDINE BROOKS, author of Nine Parts of Desire and Year of Wonders
“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
Suggested Reading
Nuha al-Radi, Baghdad Diaries
Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
Jane Austen, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Pride and Prejudice
Saul Bellow, The Dean’s December and More Die of Heartbreak
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes
Henry Fielding, Shamela and Tom Jones
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne