# Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books - Paperback

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by **Azar Nafisi** (Author)

**#1 _NEW YORK TIMES_ BESTSELLER - SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE - ONE OF THE BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE CENTURY\***

**In this celebrated modern classic, a former teacher in revolutionary Iran tells the extraordinary true story of the women who risked their lives to study Western literature in her living room.**

**"Stunning . . . a literary life raft on Iran's fundamentalist sea."--Margaret Atwood, author of _The Handmaid's Tale_**

**"An intimate memoir of life under a repressive regime and a celebration of the vitality of literature . . . as rich and profound as the novels Nafisi teaches."--_The Miami Herald_**  
Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Azar Nafisi, a bold and inspired teacher, secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics.

Some of the women came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; some had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they removed their veils and began to speak more freely--their stories intertwining with the novels they were reading by Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov.

As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, as fundamentalists seized hold of the universities and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the women in Nafisi's living room spoke not only of the books they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams, and disappointments.

Azar Nafisi's luminous masterwork gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women's lives in revolutionary Iran. _Reading Lolita in Tehran_ is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny, and a celebration of the liberating power of literature.

**\*_Kirkus Reviews_**

### Front Jacket

Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi's living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading. "Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the liberating power of literature.

### Author Biography

**Azar Nafisi** is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. She won a fellowship from Oxford and taught English literature at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University and Allameh Tabatabai University in Iran. She was expelled from the University of Tehran for refusing to wear the veil and left Iran for America in 1997. She has written for _The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal_ and _The New Republic_, and is the author of _Anti-Terra: A Critical Study of Vladimir Nabokov's Novels_. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two children.

**Number of Pages:** 356

**Dimensions:** 0.84 x 8.16 x 5.12 IN

**Publication Date:** December 30, 2003

**Accelerated Reader:**

**Quiz Name:** Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

**Interest Level:** Upper Grades, 9-12

**Reading Level:** 8.4

**Point Value:** 25

## Details

- **Price:** 22.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 22.00 USD | In stock |

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- Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books - Paperback

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