Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

Clemens Colleen (Kutztown University of Pennsylvania)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 7.1.1: Iranian/ Persian Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Laetitia Nanquette (University of New South Wales)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2003

Places

Iran (Country of Origin)
United States (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Memoir

Resources

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In her first memoir,

Reading Lolita in Tehran

(2003), Azar Nafisi writes of her experience living and working in Tehran, Iran, as a professor of English. She tells the story of an illegal book club that meets in her apartment where young women from all ends of the political and religious spectrums meet to discuss texts forbidden by the theocratic autocracy – books that are deemed to be too “western”. Using canonical novels by Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Jane Austen to create the memoir’s structure, Nafisi weaves together literary analysis and personal narrative to unfold her story of living and reading in Tehran—and ultimately deciding to leave it. Much of the book recounts the pain Nafisi comes to terms with as she prepares to leave Iran. As she says…

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1606 words

Citation: Colleen, Clemens. "Reading Lolita in Tehran". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 September 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35039, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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