Reading Lolita in Tehran,
by Azar Nafisis
While this may have been reviewed here before, this reviewer found this book to
be fascinating, timely, very readable and encourages all those interested in
reading and the Middle East to discover its many pleasures. The actual story
concerns a reading group Nafisis organized in Tehran after the Islamic
Revolution to discuss the works of many authors. While the first discussion is
of Nabokov's Lolita, the books of Austen, James and others are included. She
uses those works as the backdrop of exploring life, particularly for women, in
the newly formed Islamic state of Iran. Yet the reader gets so much more - the
turbulence of living through the revolution, life in Iran during the Iran - Iraq
War, adapting to living in a totally religious state and how educated people
deal with the traumatic change in their lives and country after this revolution.
In addition, it made this reviewer want to read those authors Nafisis chose to
write about.
-Roy
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