Product Description

For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Azar Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. Shy and uncomfortable at first, they soon began to open up and speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading - "Pride and Prejudice", "Washington Square", "Daisy Miller" and "Lolita" - their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran. Nafisi's account flashes back to the early days of the revolution when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum. Azar Nafisi's luminous tale offers a portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a glimpse, from the inside, of women's lives in revolutionary Iran.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37660 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
An inspired blend of memoir and literary criticism, Reading Lolita in Tehran is a moving testament to the power of art and its ability to change and improve people's lives. In 1995, after resigning from her job as a professor at a university in Tehran due to its repressive policies, Azar Nafisi invited seven of her best female students to attend a weekly study of great Western literature in her home. Since the books they read were officially banned by the government, the women were forced to meet in secret, often sharing photocopied pages of the illegal novels.

For two years they met to talk, share and "shed their mandatory veils and robes and burst into color". Though most of the women were shy and intimidated at first, they soon became emboldened by the forum and used the meetings as a springboard for debating the social, cultural and political realities of living under strict Islamic rule. They discussed their harassment at the hands of "morality guards," the daily indignities of living under Ayatollah Khomeini's regime, the effects of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, love, marriage and life in general, giving readers a rare inside look at revolutionary Iran. The books were always the primary focus, however and they became "essential to our lives: they were not a luxury but a necessity", she writes.

Threaded into the memoir are trenchant discussions of the work of Vladimir Nabokov, F Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen and other authors who provided the women with examples of those who successfully asserted their autonomy despite great odds. The great works encouraged them to strike out against authoritarianism and repression in their own ways, both large and small: "There, in that living room, we rediscovered that we were also living, breathing human beings; and no matter how repressive the state became, no matter how intimidated and frightened we were, like Lolita we tried to escape and to create our own little pockets of freedom." In short, the art helped them to survive. --Shawn Carkonen, Amazon.com

The Times
'Communicates brilliantly the terrifying moral absolutism of a state which believes that to write of adultery is to condone it.'

Simon Jenkins, The Sunday Times
'The use of Lolita, Gatsby etc. as metaphor is exquisite.'

Customer Reviews

Of Literary Criticism, Repression and Revolutionary Horrors
This book will appeal most to those who want to understand what it has been like to be a Western educated and liberated woman in Iran since the Iranian revolution began against the shah. If you also enjoy English literary criticism and analysis, you will have a great treat ahead of you. If hearing about injustice and brutality upset you, you will like this book less well.

The format of this book is most unusual. I predict that you will either find the format intriguing or maddening, depending on how flexible you are in your appreciation of new styles. Professor Nafisi writes her memoir of those years in a sort of semi-diary form. The observations are filled with nuance about the people in her life, the nature of her life, her thoughts and how what's going on reflects the concerns of four novelists, Nabokov (especially through Lolita), Fitzgerald (especially through The Great Gatsby), James (especially through Daisy Miller and The Ambassadors), and Austen (especially through Pride and Prejudice). Against this literary and personal backdrop, violent events explode every few pages as the Islamic Republic is established and begins its crackdown on women and dissidents. Later, the Iran-Iraq war provides similar moments of violence.

The literary-real life nexus is related to Professor Nafisi having been an English literature professor in Tehran when the revolution began. At first, she still taught in the university. Later she resigned. Still later, she agreed to return in full Muslim regalia for women. Then, she quit again and began teaching a secret class for her most devoted students in her home.

The book opens with a lyrical description of the home teaching experience in the context of Lolita, which the group was studying. After that section, the book moves back in time and proceeds in chronological fashion through the author's decision to leave Iran to relocate with her family in the United States.

This book taught me many things. First, I had no idea of the degree of repression and oppression that has occurred in Iran. Second, I was intrigued by how Professor Nafisi tried to live a decent, meaningful life in this difficult context. Her life is a good example for all who like to help others. Third, I was impressed by the way she could use student reactions to literature as a way of explaining what their culture and experiences have been like. For instance, her women students usually did not date, but were trying to understand complex relationships between people of the opposite sex who were attracted to one another. There was a difficult experience void to fill. In addition, the more literal male students would associate any immoral action taken by any character as suggesting that the book is immoral and that the author approved of the action . . . even if the character later suffered the direst consequences because of the action. Fourth, our freedom in the United States is vastly more precious than we realize. Reading about what it's like to have a religion running the country is an important lesson that we should all be aware of.

Professor Nafisi is a thoughtful, insightful and caring person. I enjoyed learning about her as well. Many of her students also appealed to me, and I enjoyed finding out how they dealt with their challenges.

Be free!

Every book lover and every woman should read this book
I came across this book quite by chance and, have to say, that it is not the usual thing that I would choose - being more a lover of fiction and history than autobiographical works. However, the sub-title, "A memoir in books" drew in this reader for whom, like the author, books are a necessity and not a luxury. The book is extemely moving, reciting the more trivial (and therefore more personal) complaints of the oppressive regime against normal people in Iran, espcially against women. Books are a backdrop for this information, but also essential, giving strength and pathos to the things going on around the author at the time. I would like to applaud Azar Nafisi for writing this very important book. I loved it. I have brought copies for friends and lent it to anyone who would let me. It is far from the perhaps ominous or depressing title it may appear - it is uplifting and joyous. A celebration of womanhood and of literature. Thank you to the author for writing it - I am honoured to the be the first to give it five stars and only hope I persuade more people to read it.

A riveting story

I have to passion to go for any book that has an unusual but interesting setting. Reading Lolita in Tehran proved to be one of such books. I wasn't disappointed when I read it to the last page. Dwelling in an atmosphere of tyranny which breeds fear, the book talks of dissent in a new political system that was against openness in arts, culture, history and dissent. In the Iran of her times, even western literature was considered anti-revolutionary by the authorities, yet people stayed determined to pay any price to be connected to the rest of the world. War and peace still left the society yearning for freedom, a craving to be free that led to the author's decision to eventually leave Iran with her family to the United States of America. Also recommended: UNION MOUJIK, LOLITA, DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE ,SEARCHING FOR HASSAN