Azar Nafisi
Auteur de Lire Lolita à Téhéran
A propos de l'auteur
AZAR NAFISI is a visiting professor and the director of the Dialogue Project at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University. She has taught Western literature at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and the University of Allameh Tabatabai in Iran. In 1994 she won a afficher plus teaching fellowship from Oxford University, and in 1997 she and her family left Iran for America. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic and has appeared on radio and television programs. Azar's book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, was published in 2003 to wide acclaim. (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins
Crédit image: Author Azar Nafisi at the 2015 Texas Book Festival. By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44476478
Œuvres de Azar Nafisi
Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times (2022) 155 exemplaires, 6 critiques
Nafisi, Azar Archive 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process (2017) — Contributeur — 144 exemplaires, 4 critiques
My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices (2006) — Contributeur — 108 exemplaires, 3 critiques
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Autres noms
- آذر نفیسی
- Date de naissance
- 1955-12
- Sexe
- female
- Nationalité
- Iran
- Lieu de naissance
- Teheran, Iran
- Lieux de résidence
- Tehran, Iran
Lancaster, Lancashire, England, UK
Switzerland
Baltimore, Maryland, USA - Études
- University of Oklahoma (PhD | English and American literature)
- Professions
- lecturer in English Literature
writer - Relations
- Nafisi, Ahmad (father)
Nafisi, Nezhat (mother)
Naderi, Bijan (husband) - Organisations
- Tehran University
Allameh Tabataba'i University (ATU), Tehran
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Board of Trustees of Freedom House - Prix et distinctions
- Persian Golden Lioness Award
Membres
Critiques
Azar Afisi's memoir makes a good case for reading the classics of Western literature no matter where you are. Her perspectives on her students' plight, the ongoing struggle of Iranian citizens, and her country's violent transformation into an Islamic state will provide valuable insights to anyone interested in current international events.
A memoir of life in Tehran under the Islamic Republic during the 1980s and 1990s from the point of view of a secular, liberal member of the intelligentsia.
Nafisi is a professor of English literature, and the best parts of the book are the scenes of Iranian students in the early days of the revolution, and later in Nafisi's private study group in the late 1990s, reacting to the novels she loves and teaches. The classroom "trial" of The Great Gatsby, in which an ardent Islamic revolutionary student condems the book as a part of the decadent and immoral West, while another student argues in defense of its moral value, was a high point. Nafisi's drawing of a parallel between Humbert's "pinning" of Lolita and forcing her to be the person of his own imagination and what Nafisi sees as a similar act by Khomeini and the Islamic Republic in forcing Iranians to conform to their fantasies of how people should behave also struck me as interesting.
But there was less of that than I would have thought, and more of Nafisi's own condemnations and rants against the Islamic regime and its supporters and how it all made her feel. And most of the book's scenes with her small private study group of women equally alienated from the regime is spent complaining about their lives and the government, rather than discussing literature. Though to be sure, they have plenty to complain about, no argument there.
The book is interesting and worth reading, but I do wish Nafisi could have toned down her obviously strong impulse to write about "how the Islamic Republic made me continually feel depressed" and concentrated somewhat more on the actual works of English literature and how her students responded to them in their particular, much different, society.
… (plus d'informations)
Nafisi is a professor of English literature, and the best parts of the book are the scenes of Iranian students in the early days of the revolution, and later in Nafisi's private study group in the late 1990s, reacting to the novels she loves and teaches. The classroom "trial" of The Great Gatsby, in which an ardent Islamic revolutionary student condems the book as a part of the decadent and immoral West, while another student argues in defense of its moral value, was a high point. Nafisi's drawing of a parallel between Humbert's "pinning" of Lolita and forcing her to be the person of his own imagination and what Nafisi sees as a similar act by Khomeini and the Islamic Republic in forcing Iranians to conform to their fantasies of how people should behave also struck me as interesting.
But there was less of that than I would have thought, and more of Nafisi's own condemnations and rants against the Islamic regime and its supporters and how it all made her feel. And most of the book's scenes with her small private study group of women equally alienated from the regime is spent complaining about their lives and the government, rather than discussing literature. Though to be sure, they have plenty to complain about, no argument there.
The book is interesting and worth reading, but I do wish Nafisi could have toned down her obviously strong impulse to write about "how the Islamic Republic made me continually feel depressed" and concentrated somewhat more on the actual works of English literature and how her students responded to them in their particular, much different, society.
… (plus d'informations)
Difficult subject to read about. Reading it in 2024 makes it feel a bit dated since it is gotten so much worse for women.
Listes
Prix et récompenses
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Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 9
- Aussi par
- 5
- Membres
- 14,333
- Popularité
- #1,604
- Évaluation
- 3.6
- Critiques
- 320
- ISBN
- 117
- Langues
- 15
- Favoris
- 14
Nafasi’s thesis, as it were, is most clearly articulated in an interview included in the back of the edition I read. She talks about how great literature provides glimpses of truth, beauty, and different worlds that are especially valuable in repressive, totalitarian conditions. Nafasi comes across as an articulate writer and an excellent teacher. She has an excellent way of describing the importance of books:
… (plus d'informations)