Reading Lolita in Tehran – A Memoir in Books

Azar Nafisi

The sub-title of Reading Lolita in Tehran is A Memoir in Books, and that is just what it is! The book was first published in 2003 and is a memoir by the author Azar Nafisi about life in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which now seems to have great resonance in light of the current Arab Spring. Nafisi recounts how every Thursday morning for two years she taught Western fiction to a group of students secretly within her home, including classics by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James and Jane Austen, but the book that Nafisi references mostly is Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita which she uses as a metaphor for life in Tehran.  For the reader, having a prior knowledge of the classics that feature in Reading Lolita in Tehran certainly helps to gain an understanding of the parallels drawn between literature and life. [Read more...]