2004 Year in Review

Reading Lolita in Tehran

A Memoir in Books
By Azar Nafisi

Having read this book has given me a much greater understanding of not only the oppression of a hostile government on its people, but also the suppression of rights, and daily aspects of life. Azar Nafisi taught English literature at the University of Tehran in Iran during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. She was expelled by the university for refusing to wear the veil and left Iran for America in 1997.

This book not only reveals the layering of rules and the displacement of individual rights, but, more importantly, the spirit and longing for freedom as divulged through the lives of seven young women. These young women are students of Azar’s who want to continual learning even though Western literature is forbidden. They secretly meet in Azar’s home, remove their veils, and immerse themselves in reading and discussion of literary classics of the western world: The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Lolita, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and others. Gradually, the young women are revealed to us, each other, and, ultimately, themselves in Azar’s livingroom each Thursday.

Through the reading and discussion that is described in the book, the reader realizes the extraordinary freedom one has in this country, and the lifeline of hope that Azar is giving the seven young women.

The theme of this class the relation between fiction and reality. “I need you, the reader, to imagine us for we won’t really exist if you don’t. Against the tyranny of time and politics, imagine us the way we sometimes do not dare to imagine ourselves: in our most private moments, in the most extraordinarily ordinary instances of our lives, listening to music, holding hands, falling in love, walking down the shady streets of Tehran. And then imagine us again with all this confiscated, driven underground, taken away from us.” This is Tehran for me; its absences were more real than its presences.

Thus, begins this extraordinary book written in a lyrical, poetic style filled with images describing a harsh unforgiving world. Many times I imagined the world of Afghanistan and Iraq: the people, the extremism, the cruelty, and over riding mistrust and, at times, hatred of the Western world. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi is an eye opener. I very highly recommend this book to all!!!!

by Anne Frame, Guest Columnist
October 10, 2004