Reading Lolita in Tehran - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books is a book by Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian author and professor Azar Nafisi

Azar Nafisi

Azar Nafisi, born ca. 1947, is an Iranian academic and bestselling writer who has resided in the United States since 1997 when she emigrated from Iran. Her field is English language literature....

.

Published in 2003, it has been on the New York Times bestseller list

New York Times Best Seller list

The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...

for over one hundred weeks and has been translated into thirty-two languages.

Plot

The book is a memoir of the experience of the author who returned to Iran during the revolution (1978-1981)

Iranian Revolution

The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...

and lived and taught in the Islamic Republic of Iran until her departure in 1997. It narrates her teaching at the University of Tehran

University of Tehran

The University of Tehran , also known as Tehran University and UT, is Iran's oldest university. Located in Tehran, the university is among the most prestigious in the country, and is consistently selected as the first choice of many applicants in the annual nationwide entrance exam for top Iranian...

after 1979, her refusal to submit to the rule to wear the veil and her subsequent expulsion from the university, life during the Iran-Iraq war

Iran-Iraq War

The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran, lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the longest conventional war of the twentieth century...

, her return to teaching at the University of Allameh Tabatabei (1981), her resignation (1987), the formation of her book club (1995–97), and her decision to emigrate. Events are interlaced with the stories of book club members consisting of seven of her female students, who met weekly at Nafisi's house to discuss works of Western

Western culture

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...

literature including the controversial 'Lolita' and the texts are interpreted through the books they read.

Structure

The book is divided into four sections: "Lolita", "Gatsby", "James", and "Austen".

"Lolita" deals with Nafisi as she resigns from The University of Tehran and starts her private literature class with students Mahshid, Yassi, Mitra, Nassrin, Azin, Sanaz and Manna. They talk not just about Lolita

Lolita

Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...

, but One Thousand and One Nights and Invitation to a Beheading

Invitation to a Beheading

Invitation to a Beheading is a novel by Russian American author Vladimir Nabokov. It was originally published in Russian in 1935-1936 as a serial in Contemporary Notes , a highly respected Russian émigré magazine...

. The main themes are oppression, jailers as revolutionary guards try to assert their authority through certain events such as a vacation gone awry and a runaway convict.

"Gatsby" is set about eleven years before "Lolita" just as the Iranian revolution starts. The reader learns how some Iranians' dreams, including the author's, became shattered through the government's imposition of new rules. Nafisi's student Mr. Nyazi puts the novel on trial, claiming that it condones adultery. Chronologically this is the first part of Nafisi's story. The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....

and Mike Gold

Mike Gold

Michael "Mike" Gold is the pen-name of Jewish American writer Itzok Isaac Granich. A lifelong communist, Gold was a novelist and literary critic, his semi-autobiographical novel Jews Without Money from 1930 was a bestseller.- Biography :Gold was born Itzok Isaac Granich on April 12, 1894 on the...

's works are discussed in this part. The reader meets Nassrin.

Nafisi states that the Gatsby chapter is about the American dream

American Dream

The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each...

, the Iranian dream of revolution and the way it was shattered for her; the James chapter is about uncertainty and the way totalitarian mindsets hate uncertainty; and Austen is about the choice of women, a woman at the center of the novel saying no to the authority of her parents, society, and welcoming a life of dire poverty in order to make her own choice.

"James" takes place right after "Gatsby", when the Iran–Iraq War begins and Nafisi is expelled from the University of Tehran along with a few other professors. The veil becomes mandatory and she states that the government wants to control the liberal-minded professors. Nafisi meets the man she calls her "magician", seemingly a literary academician who had retired from public life at the time of the revolution. Daisy Miller

Daisy Miller

Daisy Miller is an 1878 novella by Henry James first appearing in Cornhill Magazine in Jun-July 1879, and in book form the following year. It portrays the courtship of the beautiful American girl Daisy Miller by Winterbourne, a sophisticated compatriot of hers...

and Washington Square

Washington Square (novel)

Washington Square is a short novel by Henry James. Originally published in 1880 as a serial in Cornhill Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine, it is a structurally simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father...

are the main texts. Nassrin reappears after spending several years in prison.

"Austen" succeeds "Lolita" as Nafisi plans to leave Iran and the girls discuss the issue of marriages, men and sex. The only real flashback (not counting historical background) is into how the girls and Nafisi toyed with the idea of creating a Dear Jane society. While Azin deals with an abusive husband and Nassrin plans to leave for England, Nafisi's magician reminds her not to blame all of her problems on the Islamic Republic. Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...

, while the main focus, is used more to reinforce themes about blindness and empathy.

Throughout the whole novel Nafisi tackles the question of what is a hero and a villain in literature. Each independent section of the book examines notions of heroism and villainy by connecting characters from books such as Invitation to a Beheading or The Great Gatsby to others. The basis of her definition of heroism and villainy is the connection between characters who are "blind to other's problems" such as Humbert Humbert in Lolita and characters who can empathize. This theme is intertwined with that of oppression and blindness.

Title

The title refers to Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...

's novel, Lolita

Lolita

Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...

, a story about a middle aged man who has a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old pubescent girl. The book 'Lolita' is used by the author as a metaphor for life in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Although the book states that the metaphor is not allegorical (p. 35) Nafisi does want to draw parallels between "victim and jailer" (p. 37). The author implies that, like the principal character in 'Lolita', the regime in Iran imposes their "dream upon our reality, turning us into his figments of imagination." In both cases, the protagonist commits the "crime of solipsizing another person`s life."

Background

Nafisi's account flashes back to the early days of the revolution

Iranian Revolution

, when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In 1980, Nafisi claims she was dismissed from the University of Tehran

University of Tehran

for refusing to wear a veil; she subsequently pursued an independent writing career, bore two children, and, after a long hiatus from teaching, took a full-time job at Allameh Tabatabaii University

Allameh Tabatabaii University

Allameh Tabatabai University , is a public university in Tehran, Iran, under the supervision of the Ministry of Sciences, Research and Technology...

where she resumed the teaching of fiction.

The book also discusses issues concerning the politics of Iran

Politics of Iran

The politics of Iran take place in a framework of theocracy guided by an Islamist ideology. The December 1979 constitution, and its 1989 amendment, define the political, economic, and social order of the Islamic Republic of Iran, declaring that Shi'a Islam of the Twelver school of thought is...

during and after the Iranian revolution

Iranian Revolution

, the Iran–Iraq War, and the Iranian people in general. In one instance, for example, Nafisi's students ridicule Iranian soldiers who served and died during Iran–Iraq War. She writes: "[The students] were making fun of the dead student and laughing. They joked that his death was a marriage made in heaven - didn’t he and his comrades say that their only beloved was God?"

Nafisi also describes how her freedom was restricted and why she had to leave Tehran University in 1981: "I told her I did not want to wear the veil in the classroom. Did I not wear the veil, she asked, when ever I went out? Did I not wear it in the grocery store and walking down the street? It seemed I constantly had to remind people that the university was not a grocery store." Later making a compromise and accepting the veil, Nafisi came back to academia and resumed her career in Iranian universities until 1995.

The issue of the headscarf in Iranian society is a running theme in the book. In Nafisi's words: "My constant obsession with the veil had made me buy a very wide black robe with kimonolike sleeves, wide and long. I had gotten to the habit of withdrawing my hands into the sleeves and pretending that I had no hands." Ayatollah Khomeini decreed Iranian women must follow the Islamic dress code on March 7, 1979. In Nafisi’s view, the headscarf was the icon of oppression in the aftermath of the revolution. Nafisi wrote in her book referring to Khomeini's funeral: "The day women did not wear the scarf in public would be the real day of his death and the end of his revolution." Ayatollah Khomeini established the new regime after a referendum

Referendum

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

(March 30 and 31, 1979) in which more than 98% of the Iranian people voted for the creation of the republic. Before the revolution, Iranian women were not obligated to wear the veil for almost fifty years . In fact, women who wore headscarves were banned from most universities and could not work as government employees.

Although Nafisi criticizes the Iranian government, she also calls for self-criticism. In her speech at the 2004 National Book Festival, Nafisi said: "It is wrong to put all the blame on the Islamic regime or...on the Islamic fundamentalists. It is important to probe and see what...you [did] wrong to create this situation."

Nafisi states in the New York Times, "People from my country have said the book was successful because of a Zionist conspiracy and US imperialism, and others have criticized me for washing our dirty laundry in front of the enemy."

Derivative Work

February 2011 saw the premiere of a concert performance of an opera based on Reading Lolita in Tehran at the University of Maryland School of Music with music by doctoral student Elisabeth Mehl Greene and a libretto co-written by Iranian-American poet Mitra Motlagh. Azar Nafasi was closely involved in the development of the project, and participated in an audience Q&A session after the premiere.

Criticism

Nafisi's book drew sharp criticism by Columbia Professor Hamid Dabashi

Hamid Dabashi

Hamid Dabashi born 1951 in Ahvaz is an Iranian-American Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City.He is the author of over twenty books...

, who sees the book as basically being propaganda for the Bush administration to attack countries like Iran and Iraq (The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....

, October 13, 2006). Dabashi wrote a critical essay in the June 1 edition of the Egyptian English weekly Al-Ahram

Al-Ahram

Al-Ahram , founded in 1875, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya . It is majority owned by the Egyptian government....

. In it, he used the late literary scholar Edward Said's work on Orientalism

Orientalism

Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...

to critique Nafisi's memoir as evidenced in this quote: "By seeking to recycle a kaffeeklatsch version of English literature as the ideological foregrounding of American empire, Reading Lolita in Tehran is reminiscent of the most pestiferous colonial projects of the British in India, when for example, in 1835 a colonial officer like Thomas Macaulay decreed: 'We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect.' Azar Nafisi is the personification of that native informer and colonial agent, polishing her services for an American version of the very same project."

In a subsequent interview with Z Magazine, Dabashi compared Nafisi to former American soldier Lynndie England

Lynndie England

Lynndie Rana England is a former United States Army reservist who served in the 372nd Military Police Company. She was one of eleven military personnel convicted in 2005 by Army courts-martial in connection with the torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad during the occupation...

, who was convicted of abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

In a critical article published in the academic journal Comparative American Studies titled 'Reading Azar Nafisi in Tehran', Head of the North American Studies Department at University of Tehran

University of Tehran

Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi argued that "Nafisi constantly confirms what orientalist representations have regularly claimed". He also points out that she "has produced gross misrepresentations of Iranian society and Islam and that she uses quotes and references which are inaccurate, misleading, or even wholly invented."

Responses to Dabashi

Nafisi responded to Dabashi's criticism by stating that she is not, as Dabashi claims, a neoconservative, that she opposed the Iraq war, and that she is more interested in literature than in politics. In an interview, Nafisi stated that she's never argued for an attack on Iran and that democracy, when it comes, should come from the Iranian people (and not from US military or political intervention). She added that while she is willing to engage in "serious argument...Debate that is polarized isn't worth my time." She stated that she did not respond directly to Dabashi because "You don't want to debase yourself and start calling names."

Ali Banuazizi, the codirector of Boston College’s Middle East studies program, stated that Dabashi's article was very ‘‘intemperate’’ and that it was ‘‘not worth the attention’’ it had received. Marty Peretz, a writer of The New Republic also defended Nafisi against Dabashi's claims, asking rhetorically ‘‘Over what kind of faculty does [Columbia president] Lee Bollinger preside?’’ Christopher Shea of the Boston Globe argued that while Dabashi spent "several thousand words...eviscerating the book," his main point was not about the specific text but rather the book’s black-and-white portrayal of Iran. In an article posted on Slate.com, Gideon Lewis-Kraus described Dabashi's article as "a less-than-coherent pastiche of stock anti-war sentiment, strategic misreading, and childish calumny." Robert Fulford sharply criticized Dabashi's comments in the National Post

National Post

The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...

, arguing that "Dabashi's frame of reference veers from Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

to Edward Said

Edward Said

Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...

. Like a Stalinist, he tries to convert culture into politics, the first step toward totalitarianism. Like the late Edward Said, he brands every thought he dislikes as an example of imperialism, expressing the West's desire for hegemony over the downtrodden (even when oil-rich) nations of the Third World. While imitating the attitudes of Said, Dabashi deploys painful cliches."

Firoozeh Papan-Matin, the Director of Persian and Iranian Studies at the University of Washington

University of Washington

University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

in Seattle, also criticized Dabashi's characterization of Nafisi. Papan-Matin stated that Dabashi's accusation that Nafisi is promoting a "'kaffeeklatsch' worldview... callously ignores the extreme social and political conditions that forced Nafisi underground." Papan Matin also argued that "Dabashi’s attack is that whether Nafisi is a collaborator with the [United States]" was not relevant to the legitimate questions set forth in her book.

Cited Books

In the endpapers is a list of books that are discussed throughout the book. They are, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

Baghdad Diaries by Nuha al-Radi
Nuha al-Radi
Nuha al-Radi , was an Iraqi diarist, ceramist and painter.She was born into a distinguished Iraqi family which included Mahmoud Shawkat, the last Prime Minister of the Ottoman Empire. In 1919, her father Mohammed Selim al-Radi was one of the first Iraqis to be educated in the USA when he studied...
The Blind Assassin
The Blind Assassin
The Blind Assassin is an award-winning, bestselling novel by the Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 2000. Set in Canada, it is narrated from the present day, referring back to events that span the twentieth century.The work was awarded the Man...

by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
Emma
Emma
Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively 'comedy of manners' among...

, Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park may mean:* Mansfield Park by Jane Austen* Mansfield Park , based on the novel, directed by Patricia Rozema, starring Frances O'Connor, Embeth Davidtz, and Sheila Gish in 1999...

and Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...

by Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
The Dean's December
The Dean's December
The Dean's December is a 1982 novel by the American author Saul Bellow. The first novel Bellow published after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976, it is set in Chicago and Bucharest...

and More Die of Heartbreak
More Die of Heartbreak
More Die of Heartbreak is a 1987 novel by the American author Saul Bellow, and was his tenth novel. Like most of Bellow's other works, More Die of Heartbreak is grounded more in the development of character than in the growth of action. Among its themes are the difficulties of reconciling one's...

by Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...

by Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...

by Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
Under Western Eyes
Under Western Eyes
Under Western Eyes is a novel by Joseph Conrad. The novel takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Geneva, Switzerland, and is viewed as Conrad's response to the themes explored in Crime and Punishment; Conrad being reputed to have detested Dostoevsky...

by Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
Shamela and Tom Jones
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. First published on 28 February 1749, Tom Jones is among the earliest English prose works describable as a novel...

by Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....

by F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...

by Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
The Ambassadors
The Ambassadors
The Ambassadors is a 1903 novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in the North American Review . This dark comedy, one of the masterpieces of James's final period, follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of Chad, his widowed fiancée's supposedly...

, Daisy Miller
Daisy Miller
Daisy Miller is an 1878 novella by Henry James first appearing in Cornhill Magazine in Jun-July 1879, and in book form the following year. It portrays the courtship of the beautiful American girl Daisy Miller by Winterbourne, a sophisticated compatriot of hers...

and Washington Square
Washington Square (novel)
Washington Square is a short novel by Henry James. Originally published in 1880 as a serial in Cornhill Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine, it is a structurally simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father...

by Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
In the Penal Colony
In the Penal Colony
"In the Penal Colony" is a short story by Franz Kafka written in German in October 1914, revised in November 1918, and first published in October 1919....

and The Trial
The Trial
The Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader.Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never...

by Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
The Confidence Man by Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
Lolita
Lolita
Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...

, Invitation to a Beheading
Invitation to a Beheading
Invitation to a Beheading is a novel by Russian American author Vladimir Nabokov. It was originally published in Russian in 1935-1936 as a serial in Contemporary Notes , a highly respected Russian émigré magazine...

and Pnin
Pnin
Pnin is Vladimir Nabokov's 13th novel and his fourth written in English; it was published in 1957.-Plot summary:The book's eponymous protagonist, Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, is a Russian-born professor living in the United States...

by Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
The Country of the Pointed Firs
The Country of the Pointed Firs
The Country of the Pointed Firs is an 1896 short story sequence by Sarah Orne Jewett which is considered by some literary critics to be her finest work...

by Sarah Orne Jewett
Sarah Orne Jewett
Sarah Orne Jewett was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set in or near South Berwick, Maine, on the border of New Hampshire, which in her day was a declining New England seaport.-Biography:Jewett's family had been residents of New England for many...
My Uncle Napoleon
My Uncle Napoleon
My Uncle Napoleon is a coming of age novel by Iranian author Iraj Pezeshkzad published in Tehran in Persian in 1973. The novel was adapted to a highly successful TV series in 1976 directed by Nasser Taghvai...

by Iraj Pezeshkzad
Iraj Pezeshkzad
Iraj Pezeshkzad is an Iranian writer and author of the famous Persian novel Dā'i Jān Napoleon published in the early 1970s.-Career:...
The Language Police by Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch
Diane Silvers Ravitch is an historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S...
The Net of Dreams by Julie Salamon
Julie Salamon
Julie Salamon , is an American journalist, critic and author.She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and raised in Seaman, a rural village located in Adams County, Ohio, where her father was the town doctor. After graduating from Tufts University, she moved to New York City, where she received her law...
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Marjane Satrapi
Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, animated film director, and children's book author...
A Thousand and One Nights by Scheherazade
Scheherazade
Scheherazade , sometimes Scheherazadea, Persian transliteration Shahrazad or Shahrzād is a legendary Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights.-Narration :...
The Emigrants
The Emigrants
The Emigrants is a 1971 Swedish film directed by Jan Troell. It tells the story of a Swedish group who emigrate from Småland, Sweden to Minnesota, United States in the 19th century. The film follows the hardship of the group in Sweden and on the trip....

by W.G. Sebald
The Stone Diaries
The Stone Diaries
The Stone Diaries is a 1993 award-winning novel by Carol Shields.It is the fictional autobiography about the life of Daisy Goodwill Flett, a seemingly ordinary woman whose life is marked by death and loss from the beginning, when her mother dies during childbirth...

by Carol Shields
Carol Shields
Carol Ann Shields, CC, OM, FRSC, MA was an American-born Canadian author. She is best known for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award in Canada.-Biography:Shields was born in Oak Park, Illinois...
The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Skvorecky
Josef Škvorecký
Josef Škvorecký, CM is a leading contemporary Czech writer and publisher who has spent much of his life in Canada. He and his wife were long-time supporters of Czech dissident writers before the fall of communism in that country...
Loitering with Intent
Loitering with Intent
Loitering With Intent is a novel by Scottish author Muriel Spark. Published in 1981 by Bodley Head it was short-listed for the Booker Prize that year. It contains many autobiographical references to Spark's early career and was shortlisted for the 1981 Booker Prize...

and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Muriel Spark
Dame Muriel Spark, DBE was an award-winning Scottish novelist. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Early life:...
Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo
Italo Svevo
Aron Ettore Schmitz , better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo, was an Italian writer and businessman, author of novels, plays, and short stories.- Biography :...
Address Unknown
Address Unknown
Address Unknown may refer to:* Address Unknown , a short novel by Kathrine Taylor* Address Unknown , a film based on Kathrine Taylor's novel, directed by William Cameron Menzies...

by Katherine Kressman Taylor
Kathrine Taylor
Kathrine Kressmann Taylor or Kressmann Taylor was an American author, known mostly for her Address Unknown , a novel written as a series of letters between a Jewish art dealer, living in San Francisco, and his business partner, who had returned to Germany in 1932...
A Summons to Memphis
A Summons to Memphis
A Summons to Memphis is a 1986 novel by Peter Taylor which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1987. It is the recollection of Phillip Carver, a middle aged editor from New York City, who is summoned back to Memphis by his two conniving unmarried sisters to help them prevent the marriage of their...

by Peter Taylor
Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor
For other people named Peter Taylor, see Peter Taylor.Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor was a U.S. author and writer.-Biography:...
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
Back When We Were Grownups
Back When We Were Grownups
Back When We Were Grownups is a 2001 novel written by Anne Tyler in memory of her husband, who died in 1997.Tyler's 15th novel, like most of her work, is set in Baltimore, Maryland...

and St. Maybe
Saint Maybe
Saint Maybe is a 1991 novel by American author Anne Tyler.Tyler's plot explores the ways ordinary people react to disastrous events with quietly heroic behavior. When seventeen-year-old Ian Bedloe confronts his older brother Danny with his belief that the latter's wife, Lucy, is having an affair,...

by Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler is an American novelist.Tyler, the eldest of four children, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her father was a chemist and her mother a social worker. Her early childhood was spent in a succession of Quaker communities in the mountains of North Carolina and in Raleigh...
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is the fifth novel by Mario Vargas Llosa. It was published by Editorial Seix Barral, S.A., Spain, in 1977. Set in Peru during the 1950s, it is the story of an 18 year old student who falls for a 32 year old divorcee...

by Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...

External links

Lolita and Beyond Interview with Hamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi born 1951 in Ahvaz is an Iranian-American Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City.He is the author of over twenty books...

, Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University (as of 8/2006), on the subject of Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran.
http://books.google.com/books?id=oWgqMLAsZX4C&pg=PA317&lpg=PA317&ots=cfhXNSk6Ym&dq=atwood++%22reading+lolita%22&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html&sig=ACfU3U3KRSLb5rbyiz1nqN84y9WvLLraKQReview of RLT by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...

] in Writing with Intent, accessed 09-02-2008
About Iranian memoirs
Sorry, Wrong Chador
Lust for life by Azar Nafisi
Azar Nafisi speaks at the National Book Festival in 2004 (requires RealMedia
RealMedia
RealMedia is a proprietary multimedia container format created by RealNetworks. Its extension is ".rm". It is typically used in conjunction with RealVideo and RealAudio and is used for streaming content over the Internet....

or equivalent)
Some excerpts from Reading Lolita in Tehran
Lipstick Jihadists: Books That Will Misguide You, Hamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi born 1951 in Ahvaz is an Iranian-American Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City.He is the author of over twenty books...

, Publio.
Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran: An Interview with Fatemeh Keshavarz
Seyed Mohammad Marandi Reading Azar Nafisi in Tehran and interview http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/506/man_with_a_country/
Booknotes interview with Nafisi on Reading Lolita, June 8, 2003.

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