READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN
By Azar Nafisi
369 pp. New York:
Random House. $13.95.

Reviewed by Sarah A. Sherman

“Which one of you will finally betray me? For I am a pessimist by nature and I was sure at least one would turn against me,” ponders Professor Azar Nafisi, the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. Nafisi lived and taught in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and in Reading Lolita, she reflects on seven of her best female students, whom she invited into her home to discuss literature banned by the oppressive and often unpredictable Iranian regime. Educational crackdowns were taking place all over the country and especially affected young women. In this memoir, Nafisi changed her former students’ names to conceal the identities of those who still lived within the confines of Iranian society and who would be persecuted for their actions if they were ever revealed.

Reading Lolita in Tehran is Azar Nafisi’s first book. Previously, she taught English literature at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and the University of Allameh Tabatabai in Iran. In 1997, Nafisi refused to wear a veil and was expelled from the University of Tehran. Currently she is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Nafisi weaves an intricate story, successfully balancing the lives of the seven female students and the clandestine measures they took to broaden their exposure to western literature. At one point Nafisi states, “Against the tyranny of time and politics, imagine us the way we sometimes didn’t dare to imagine ourselves: reading Lolita in Tehran. And then imagine us again with all this confiscated, driven underground, taken away from us.” It’s a compelling tension that runs throughout the story and heightens the reader’s understanding of the damaging effect banned books have on one’s soul.

Wuthering Heights, The Pearl, Pride and Prejudice, and The Great Gatsby all take on new significance to the secret group under Professor Nafisi’s watchful eye. Suddenly, Manna, Mahshid, Nassrin, Yassi, Azin, Mitra, and Sanaz are discussing not only the themes and characters of these classics but are revealing a piece of themselves, too. “For two years they came to my house, and almost every time, I could not get over the shock of seeing them shed their mandatory veils and robes and burst into color.” Nafisi’s class not only broadened these women’s horizons intellectually, it gave them hope at a time when there was none. As war and revolution rocked Iran, Nafisi and her dedicated students continued their quest for new words and ideas. Classical literature of this sort was considered taboo by the Iranian government because it was too full of “Western” ideas that would corrupt and destroy Islamic society. The women all risked imprisonment, and perhaps even death, yet they came faithfully every Thursday to discuss their assignments. “With my small collection of books, I was like an emissary from a land that did not exist, with a stock of dreams, coming to reclaim this land as my home.”

The term book group takes on a whole new meaning as Nafisi’s students begin to explore the forbidden fiction of the West. Their lives inexplicably take on characteristics of a world they did not know existed outside of their confining borders. Nafisi’s book not only expresses the spirit behind a society trapped within its government’s confines, it is also a celebration of life and the freedoms so often taken for granted. 

 

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