Stock photo. Cover may not represent actual copy or condition available.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

A Memoir in Books

by Azar Nafisi

ISBN: 081297106X
ISBN-13: 9780812971064
Format: Paperback

Summary

Azar Nafasi formed a book club in Tehran comprised of seven young women who got together to discuss such books as THE GREAT GATSBY, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, DAISY MILLER, and, of course, LOLITA-books forbidden by the Islamic government. In this memoir, Nafasi, who was expelled from the country for refusing to wear the veil, writes about those women, the books, and her own career as a teacher of English literature-first in Iran, now (less precariously) at Johns Hopkins.

Customer Reviews

Be the first to review this book!

Media Reviews

"A spirited tribute both to the classics of world literature and to resistance against oppression."

   -- Kirkus

"[A]n eloquent brief on the transformative powers of fiction-on the refuge from ideology that art can offer to those living under tyranny, and art's affirmative and subversive faith in the voice of the individual....In this resonant and deeply affecting memoir, Ms. Nafisi pays tribute to all [her students'] lives and to the books that sustained them during some of the darkest days of the Iranian cultural revolution."    -- Michiko Kakutani

   -- New York Times

"There are certain books by our most talented essayists...that...carry inside their covers the heat and struggle of a life's central choice being made and the price being paid, while the writer tells us about other matters, and leaves behind a path of sadness and sparkling loss. READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN is such a book."    -- Mona Simpson

   -- Atlantic Monthly

"You have to spend a lifetime reading to write as well as Nafisi does. She is incapable of writing a trite or bad sentence....READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN had a most unusual effect on me. I didn't want to be interrupted, so I canceled a dental appointment and a business lunch and missed a deadline. I read and read and ignored the world. This is what brilliant books will do...."    -- Gloria Emerson

   -- Nation

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: Random House Inc
Published date: 2003
Size: 5.25 x 8 inches
Weight: 0.6 pounds
Pages: 356

Publisher's Notes

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.

Other Editions

Hardcover - Random House Inc (2003) - from $3.80
Paperback Reprint - Random House Inc (2003) - from $1.00

Similar books

Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen
by Larry McMurtry

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove presents a revealing memoir of his personal odyssey from rancher's son to critically acclaimed novelist, in an intriguing reminiscence set against the vast and colorful backdrop of the Lone Star State, past and present.

Inside The Kingdom
by Ruth Marshall

A former sister-in-law of Osama bin Ladin describes her experiences of marrying into and divorcing from the bin Ladin family, her witness to the clan's complex and secretive ways, and her sorrow over the September 11 attacks, in a trade paper edition that includes an all-new chapter. Reprint.

On Her Own Ground
by Alelia Perry Bundles

Written by her great-great-grandaughter, the biography of one of history's great entrepreneurs and philanthropists, Madam C. J. Walker, is told through personal letters, records, and never-before-seen photographs from the family collection.

The Bear's Embrace
by Patricia Van Tighem

An extraordinary story of survival and recovery by a woman who was attacked by a grizzly bear. On a sunny fall day in 1983, Patricia Van Tighem and her husband, Trevor, began a hiking trip in the Canadian Rockies with a two-thousand-foot climb through rocks and forest. The next morning, in a landscape dusted by snow, they crossed paths with a grizzly bear–and their lives were forever changed. That Van Tighem survived at all is a miracle, and her account of the attack is vivid and startling. But her recovery was just as disturbing: Her numerous reconstructive surgeries were painful; her facial disfigurement isolated her; and the nightmares that haunted her carried their own psychological burden. Yet she was eventually able to accept her unthinkable experiences, and to put her life back together as a survivor, a wife, and a mother. With honesty and eloquence, The Bear’s Embrace tells of the unpredictability of life, of bravery, terror, rage and love, of what it means to look and feel different in a culture that values perfection. Uncommonly affecting, often astonishing, The Bear’s Embrace is an inspiring story of human perseverance and self-knowledge.

In Her Own Words
by

In this dazzling collection, we meet twelve remarkable women--from Shirley Chisholm, the West Indian-raised girl who became the first black woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress, to Janet Frame, the brilliant New Zealand writer who overcame involuntary treatment in a mental institution to write one of the archetypal analyses of the post-colonial experience--by their honesty, by the scale of their struggle for self-knowledge and autonomy, and by the power of their writing. List of contributors: Rosemary Brown, Dorothy Livesay, Gabriel Roy, Robin Hyde, Lauris Edmond, Janet Frame, Sally Organ, Dorothy Hewett, Patricia Adam-Smith, Kim Chernin, Shirley Chisholm, Lillian Hellman.

Ready to buy this book?

[30 Day Return Guarantee]

Below are all of the copies of 081297106X we currently have available for purchase, sorted by lowest price first. If you would like to refine your search, use the advanced options in the search box above.

Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books

Azar Nafisi

[ISBN: 081297106X]

Random House Trade Paperbacks. 12/30/2003. Paperback. Light wear to cover. Ships Within 24 Hours - Satisfaction Guaranteed!; Books; 384 pages. (more information)

Offered by Coas Books, Inc. (United States)

$1.00

SEARCH FOR USED & RARE BOOKS			↑ show basic search
Author:		Publisher:
Title:		ISBN:
Keywords:		Shipping from:
Date between:	and	Binding:
	First edition Signed		With dust jacket

Price between:	and	Currency:
Sort results by:		Display:	results per page

Optional feature : Local Search
Search only booksellers within			miles of zip:

SEARCH FOR USED & RARE BOOKS