and backgrounds. Some are religious, others secular; some are married, others single; some are outspoken, others quiet. One was molested by her uncle when she was an adolescent. One is beaten and threatened by her husband. More than one has spent time in jail for political or moral offenses. Nafisi comments on how such individual differences among women tend to vanish under the required veil, emerging only when the women are alone together and at their ease. Thus, the portraits of Manna, Mashid, Nassrin, Yassi, Azin, Mitra, and Sanaz (all pseudonyms used to protect the women and their families still living in Iran) emerge slowly in the memoir, building in increments as their stories mingle with those of characters in the novels they read. Drawing a connection with Nabokov’s young Lolita, Nafisi writes that “not only her life but also her life story is taken from her. We told ourselves we were in that class to prevent ourselves from falling victim to this second crime.”

The men in this memoir never quite get the chance that the women do to become individuals for readers, though several play important parts in the story. Nafisi’s husband, Bijan, is a somewhat shadowy presence, appearing occasionally in the background, often when the author needs to demonstrate how even the most sympathetic of men can fail to grasp the difficulties faced by women. The men who take her official classes tend to be more outspoken than the women (one of the reasons Nafisi excludes even the best of them from her private class) and often dominate the university scenes.

The most important male character, though, is the man Nafisi refers to only as “my magician,” a former professor of film and drama who chose to leave his post rather than compromise with the powers restricting his academic freedoms. In leaving his job, the “magician” also retired from all public life and now lives a quiet existence, surrounding himself with artists and intellectuals, whom he supplies with contraband Western books and videos, European chocolates, and philosophical talk. Readers, however, must accept Nafisi’s assessment of this man’s remarkable charisma, as the source of his magic never quite becomes clear in the book.

Reading “Lolita” in Tehran is more, though, than a character study of the various women (and, to a lesser extent, men) who shaped Nafisi’s life and thinking during her years in Iran. Indeed, it is remarkably hard to classify the book by genre. It is in part literary criticism, making clear and frequently compelling assertions about the interpretation of Humbert’s character in Lolita or Austen’s intent in Pride and Prejudice. In fact, Nafisi assumes her readers will have a certain familiarity with this literature, though she explains enough to remind them of key events and characters and often sparks a desire to reread certain books in the light of their own evolving lives. Woven seamlessly with literary observations are recalled lectures and conversations with university students, re-created scenes in classrooms and coffee shops, and, of course, the moving stories of her special literature class and her “girls.”

The subtitle A Memoir in Books seems especially appropriate, as the memories and the books are irrevocably intertwined. The volume is divided into four sections, each named for a character or author featured prominently in that section—Lolita, Gatsby, James, and Austen. For instance, the “Lolita” section, the first in the book, introduces the young women in Nafisi’s private class and the theme of stolen female lives and identities under the Islamic Republic of Iran. The “Gatsby” section deals with Nafisi’s return to Tehran after seventeen years abroad and her reassimilation into Iranian culture in the early days of the revolution. It shows readers what happens when people attempt to make real the abstract dreams that should be left within the realms of fantasy. For Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, the dream is romantic union with his beloved Daisy. For the Iranian revolutionaries, it is a society organized around their own strict interpretation of Islamic law. In both cases, the result is disastrous.

For Nafisi, one of the greatest disappointments is how repressively conservative values grow from what was once a radical vision of her country’s future. While in graduate school in the United States, she had joined with leftist Iranian students in a quest to create an Iran more self-determined and less dependent on the values and influence of Europe and the United States. Back in Tehran, she is disturbed to see how the leftists collaborate with the Islamists, believing that restrictions in personal freedoms, particularly for women, are a small price to pay in order to eliminate the greater evil of Western dominance. Nafisi’s unwavering critique of the Islamic Republic, in which she goes so far as to suggest that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with feminism, will no doubt lead some readers to accuse her of anti-Muslim proselytizing. She does, however, attempt to preempt such criticism by describing with respect the faith of her devout grandmother and several of her students and by insisting that it is only the political dimension of Islam to which she objects, not the spiritual.

Against the background of her favorite books, then, Nafisi recounts her personal struggles in an Islamist Tehran very different from the city of her youth. One struggle that receives prominent attention is whether she will be allowed to teach these “decadent” books to her literature students or whether this academic freedom will be shut down by the objections of the university administration and the more conservative students themselves. At one point, she actually puts The Great Gatsby on trial in her class, with students acting as attorneys for the prosecution and defense. Equally critical is the personal decision she must make about whether to wear the veil in the classroom in accordance with new university regulations or to assert her personal freedom and values at the expense of her job. She chooses to leave her teaching post, but her moral victory is short-lived. Within a matter of months, a woman appearing anywhere in public showing a few strands of hair or a patch of skin on her throat will be subject to harassment by government morality squads, a jail sentence, and in some cases sanctioned beatings.

Nafisi’s final struggle in Tehran was with the ultimate decision of whether to stay and try to make a difference in the homeland she has loved and for which she still feels nostalgic or to leave again, this time possibly forever. After eighteen years back in Tehran, she and her family returned to live in the United States, leaving behind her beloved city and country, her magician, and her girls. Had she chosen to stay, she would not have been able to publish this remarkable memoir about how a collection of American and English books intertwined with the minds and lives of an unexpected group of readers. Ultimately, while the book touches on many subjects—from freedom to fanaticism, from politics to parenting—it is first and foremost a book about the power of language and literature—power to teach, to transform, and to save.

Review Sources

The Atlantic Monthly 291, no. 5 (June, 2003): 103-104.

Commentary 116, no. 2 (September, 2003): 72-74.

The Nation 276, no. 23 (June 16, 2003): 11-12.

New Republic 229, no. 3 (July 21, 2003): 27-32.

New Statesman 132, no. 4645 (July 7, 2003): 53.

The New York Times, April 15, 2003, p. E6.

Washington Monthly 35, no. 6 (June, 2003): 58-59.

Wilson Quarterly 27, no. 3 (Summer, 2003): 126-127.