Azar Nafisi
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Azar Nafisi (born December 1, 1955) is an Iranian academian and writer who has resided in the United States since 1997 when she emigrated from Iran. Nafisi is currently a visiting Fellow and lecturer at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and serves on the Board of Trustees of Freedom House.
Nafisi's bestselling book Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books has gained a great deal of public attention and been translated into 32 languages. It was 117 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, and has won numerous literary awards, including the 2004 Non-fiction Book of the Year Award from Booksense, and the Europe based Persian Golden Lioness Award for literature. The book has led to criticism about Nafisi's perceived connections to neoconservatism and colonialism. She has a new memoir out called "Things I've Been Silent About: Memories" (2008), in which she calmly narrates the upheavals in her dysfunctional family, including her childhood sexual abuse, where her father, the mayor of Tehran, was jailed for alleged financial irregularities under the Shah, a incarceration Nafisi yearned would bring about her parents' reconciliation.
Early Life
She is the daughter of Ahmad Nafisi, a former mayor of Tehran who was the youngest man elected to the post by the Shah's regime at that time, and Nezhat Nafisi, who was among the first women to be elected to the Iranian parliament under the Shah of Iran. Nafisi is married to Bijan Naderi, and has two children, Negar and Dara.
Born in Iran, Nafisi was sent to school in Lancaster, England at the age of 13. She moved to the United States in the last year of her high school career. She received a Ph.D in English and American literature at the University of Oklahoma. She also holds an honorary doctorate from Bard College. Nafisi returned to Iran in 1979 where for a brief time she taught English literature at the University of Tehran. She then taught at the Free Islamic Azad University, and Allameh Tabatabaii before her return to the United States in 1997 — gained western support for advocating on behalf of Iran's intellectuals, youth and especially young women.
Background and Education
Served on the faculty at Tehran University and later Allemeh Tabatabai University; as visiting fellow at the University of Oxford, taught on the interactions between Western and Iranian culture; has earned international recognition for advocating on behalf of Iran’s intellectuals, youth and especially young women; Ph.D., English literature, University of Oklahoma.
Publications
Things I Have Been Silent About (forthcoming); La Voce Verde (2006); Reading Lolitain Tehran: A Memoir in Books (2003); Anti-Terra: A Study of Vladimir Nabokov’s Novels (1994); numerous chapters and articles on issues related to promotion of democracy and human rights in Muslim societies, on women’s rights and on literature and culture; Reading Lolita has been on best-seller lists worldwide, has been translated into more than 30 languages and has won many literary awards, including 2004 nonfiction award from Booksense and the Frederic W. Ness Book Award. It has also provoked rebuttals such as a book by the well-known Iranian-American scholar Dr. Fatemeh Keshavarz, titled "Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran," which criticizes Nafisi's story as biased and tainted by her elitist prejudices against mainstream Iranian culture.
