Press — Azar Nafisi

Selected Media Coverage

Iranian author Azar Nafisi warns: 'Totalitarian mindsets can exist anywhere'

June 29, 2023 | France 24

Our guest today symbolizes the power of literature which she captures in her internationally acclaimed memoir, “Reading Lolita in Tehran”. Through her powerful storytelling, she invites readers to embark on a journey to discover Iran beyond clichés. All of her work explores themes of censorship, identity, and struggle for individuality, shedding light on the experiences of women in Iran and their quest for freedom. In 1981, Nafisi was expelled from teaching at the University of Tehran for refusing to wear the Islamic veil and eventually left Iran for the US in 1997. She's been speaking to FRANCE 24's Fatimata Wane at the Taormina book festival in Italy, where she was given an award.

Click here to watch the full conversation.

Azar Nafisi Taormina Book Festival 2023 Lecture

June 19, 2023 | Taormina Book Festival

Azar Nafisi in conversation with Barbara Stefanelli.

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Azar Nafisi Taormina Book Festival 2023 Interview

June 18 2023 | Taormina Book Festival

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Reflecting on Twenty Years Since Reading Lolita in Tehran

May 20, 2023 | Penguin Random House

Azar Nafisi published her memoir in books, Reading Lolita in Tehran, in March 2003. In it, she recounts her experience of returning to Iran during the revolution and living under the new totalitarian regime until leaving the country in 1997. The memoir centers around seven students of Dr. Nafisi’s, who form a clandestine book club and meet at her house to discuss works of Western literature, including Lolita, Henry James’s Daisy Miller and Washington Square, The Great Gatsby, and Pride and Prejudice. In honor of the twentieth anniversary of the book’s publication, Dr. Nafisi spoke with Penguin Random House’s Abbe Wright on what has and hasn’t changed for the women of Iran since she wrote the book and the extraordinary power of literature to subvert power structures.

Click here to read the interview.

Story in the Public Square

May 14, 2023 | PBS

Jim Ludes and G. Wayne Miller sit down with best-selling author, Azar Nafisi, to discuss the importance of literature in our society and the dangers of censorship and book banning.

Click here to watch the interview.

A Republic of the Imagination: In Conversation with Azar Nafisi

May 1, 2023 | World Literature Today

Azar Nafisi is the May cover of World Literature Today. With her latest book of essays, Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times (2022), Iranian American writer Azar Nafisi offers a “resistance reading list” that the Washington Post hails as offering “a new canon for the tyrannies of the present and the dystopian possibilities of the future.” Over Zoom, we discussed the power of storytelling embodied by Scheherazade and Alice in Wonderland; the intergenerational threads that connect readers; and the role of writers and readers in preserving memory and defending truth.

Click here to read the interview.

Author Azar Nafisi says books can help you really live

April 19, 2023 | NPR

Author Azar Nafisi has written a love letter to literature and reading in Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times. She does this in a series of letters to her late father who passed on in 2004. Nafisi says that reading can help us really live and also help us, and has helped her, survive challenging times. Nafisi told NPR's Scott Simon that literature's purpose is to let us experience new worlds: "to come out of yourself, and join the other."

Click here to listen.

Ensemble Pi Presents New Concert “Banned Books” in May

March 30, 2023 | Broadway World

Taking inspiration from New York Times bestselling author Azar Nafisi's Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times - a galvanizing guide to literature as an act of resistance - the concert aims to draw awareness to these oppressive practices while opening a space through music for reflection and connection. A diverse group of composers were asked to create pieces influenced by a particular banned book that resonated with them. The concert will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the composers about their work and featured books.

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Interview with BBC Persian

March 15, 2023 | BBC Persian

شش ماه پس از کشته شدن مهسا امینی چه شد که نام مهسا رمز شد؟

آذر نفیسی، نویسنده و استاد پیشین دانشگاه جان هاپکینز: مهسا امینی نمادی از نسل جدید شد که زندگی را می‌خواهد و زندگی برای یک حکومت مطلق‌گرا به مثابه مرگ است

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Azar Nafisi on Iranian Women and Atwood’s Republic of Gilead

February 21, 2023 | IranWire

IranWire has discussed with Azar Nafisi, writer, scholar, academic and the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran the similarities between the Republic of Gilead and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the ongoing protests in the country and the role of literature in social movements. The interview was conducted by three members of IranWire’s editorial board: Roghayeh Rezaei, Samaneh Ghadarkhan and Shima Shahrabi.

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Radio Farda Interview

January 25, 2023 | Radio Farda

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Interview with BBC Persian

January 5, 2023 | BBC Persian

سخنان رهبر جمهوری اسلامی در مورد حجاب اجباری در پی اعتراضات اخیر سراسری در ایران آذر نفیسی، نویسنده: برای مردم ایران و برای زنان بخصوص این یک مبارزه تنها سیاسی نیست. این یک مبارزه برای هستی است، یک مبارزه اگزیستانسیال است

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Azar Nafisi, romancière : « Le combat des Iraniens n’est pas seulement une résistance politique, mais une lutte existentielle »

December 16, 2022 | Le Monde

Avant de partir en exil aux Etats-Unis en 1997, l’autrice de « Lire Lolita à Téhéran » était enseignante à l’université de Téhéran. Se consacrant désormais entièrement à l’écriture, elle multiplie les interventions dans les médias pour soutenir ses compatriotes.

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Leggere Lolita a Teheran

December 16, 2022 | Quante Storie

Click to watch the episode here.

Leggere Lolita a Teheran

December 15, 2022 | The Boston Globe

The author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran” provides a passionate defense of literature as a pathway to freedom. It’s a perfect book for these frightening times, in which book banning is once again an American scourge and empathy is too often in short supply.

Click to view the full list here.

Il cavallo e la torre

December 12, 2022 | radio3

Marco Damilano intervista a tutto campo la scrittrice iraniana Azar Nafisi. Da donna che ha subito sulla pelle la censura della Repubblica Islamica, cosa pensa delle ragazze protagoniste della rivoluzione in atto e che futuro vede per l'Iran?

Click to listen and watch here.

Fahrenheit

December 9, 2022 | radio3

(In Italian) Azar Nafisi, racconta Quell'altro mondo, Nabokov e l'enigma dell'esilio, Adelphi – traduce Marina Astrologo

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Azar Nafisi 'è regime Iran ad avere paura, non il popolo'

December 9, 2022 | Ansa

(In Italian) E' talmente preoccupata dell'attuale situazione in Iran che non pensa ad altro la scrittrice Azar Nafisi.

Lo racconta all'ANSA al suo arrivo a Roma per la fiera 'Più libri più liberi' dove è attesa come la stella di questa edizione che la vedrà protagonista di due appuntamenti.

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Nafisi: in Iran c’è un’apartheid il regime non può uccidere tutti

December 9, 2022 | La Repubblica

di oggi è come il Sudafrica dell'apartheid, da noi il razzismo è contro le donne ma il regime perderà anche questa volta». Azar Nafisi, scrittrice iraniana in esilio ed autrice di best seller come Leggere Lolita a Teheran , coglie l'occasione della sua presenza a Roma per "Più libri più liberi" e viene in visita alla redazione del nostro giornale.

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Iran, Azar Nafisi: le proteste cambieranno il Paese

December 8, 2022 | Sky tg24

(In Italian) "Azar Nafisi, nelle ultime 12 settimane l'Iran è stato scosso da proteste di persone civili che chiedono più diritti per le donne. Negli ultimi vent'anni l'Iran ha visto numerose proteste che però fino ad oggi hanno provocato pochi cambiamenti. Secondo lei questa volta sarà diverso l'esito delle proteste e se sì perché?" "Sulla guida suprema Ali Khamenei lei crede che riuscirà a resistere a questa richiesta di più libertà e democrazia per il popolo iraniano?" "Insomma un Hijab sarà davvero in grado di fare cadere il regime degli Ayatollah?".

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Iran, cosa sta succedendo? «L’abolizione della polizia morale è una riforma finta, non basterà»

December 5, 2022 | Corriere Della Sera

(In Italian) Intervista ad Azar Nafisi, l’autrice di «Leggere Lolita a Teheran»: «La piazza chiede la fine degli ayatollah». Che cosa sta succedendo alla «polizia della morale» in Iran?
«Non è ancora chiaro — replica Azar Nafisi, autrice di Leggere Lolita a Teheran, che anche in viaggio da Parigi a Roma segue costantemente le dichiarazioni che giungono dalla Repubblica Islamica —. Non c’è un potere in Iran che possa dirsi responsabile per la polizia della morale. Chiedono ad un alto funzionario della magistratura e lui dice che non è stato il sistema giudiziario a istituirla e che bisogna domandare a chi l’ha creata. Questo mostra quanto controllo abbia perso il regime: non può prendere una decisione sulla sua stessa polizia della morale. Ogni funzionario è responsabile per quello che succede in quel governo, non possono semplicemente dire: “Non siamo responsabili”».

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Révolte en Iran : «Sans la liberté des femmes, les hommes ne sont pas libres non plus»

December 1, 2022 | Le Parisien

Depuis les États-Unis, où elle a été contrainte de s’exiler en 1997, l’écrivaine Azar Nafisi, figure iranienne du combat pour les libertés des femmes en Iran, observe la répression féroce menée par la République islamique depuis la mort de Mahsa Amini.

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Best Books of 2022

November 30, 2022 | Chicago Public Library

Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran) returns with a book about the power of literature and imagination to inspire us to connect with the world more humanely and compassionately. Structured as a series of letters to her deceased father ("Dearest Baba"), her latest book talks about beautiful and provocative novels and essays from various time periods by writers who challenge, persevere, and reveal societal truths. Nafisi moves seamlessly from writing about great books (including works by Rushdie, Bradbury, Atwood, Hurston, Morrison, Baldwin, and Coates) to elements of autobiography, biography, history and current events. She maintains that great literature & art is reflective of its time but transcends its time. She demonstrates how writers use imagination to reveal truth while authoritarian rulers and even democratically-elected officials sometimes use words in service of illusion. ("Fiction arouses our curiosity, and it is this curiosity, this restlessness, this desire to know that makes both writing and reading so dangerous.") Yet Nafisi also challenges us to read books with complicated characters, protagonists that can make us feel uneasy, and even tyrannical characters who may illicit sympathy, as literature can teach us to treat even our enemies humanely. It's a most timely work considering the increasing challenges to books in school and on library shelves.

Click here to see the full list

Donna Libri Libertà

November 6, 2022 | L’Espresso

(In Italian) Il potere dellafernminilità. che terrorizza il regime. quello della letteratura: arnia di resistenza e di democrazia. Parla l üutrice di "Leggere Lolita a Teheran.” Leggere Lolita a Teheran" è un libro nel cuore di molti lettori. Nel 2003, quando usci, fu un caso internazionale: per oltre cento settimane nella lista dei bestseller del New York Times, tradotto in 32 lingue, un premio dopo l'altro. Nel 2009 il Times lo consacrò come uno dei libri più importanti del decennio.

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10 Books to Read to Learn About Women’s Plight in Iran

November 3, 2022 | NPR

We have put together a reading list that can offer insight into Iranian women and what is happening in their country. This list of 10 books was complied with the help of fellow Iranian friends and family, including journalist and author Nazila Fathi; refugee and migration law expert Parastou Hassouri, comedian Maz Jobrani, and Maryam Haghbin, a Montessori field consultant (and also my cousin). Many are memoirs by women who were forced to flee Iran:

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, an English literature professor. This bestselling memoir about a clandestine book club she hosts at her home in Tehran draws readers in, but has been criticized by many in the Iranian diaspora and some non-Iranians for portraying Iranian themes through a narrow, Western lens.

Click here to read the full list.

Read Dangerously, with Azar Nafisi

November 3, 2022 | Book Dreams

“In Iran, like all totalitarian states,” Azar says, “the regime pays too much attention to poets and writers, harassing, jailing, and even killing them. The problem in America is that too little attention is paid to them.” The solution? “Reading literature and philosophy will teach you to have an independent mindset,” Azar explains. “It teaches you to be generous towards others, to not live on hate. … One of the things that is fascinating to me about fiction is that by structure, it is democratic. … A novel is comprised of different characters from different backgrounds–gender, race, ethnicity, religion. … The plot moves forward through creating tensions within and between these characters. Even the villain, even the bad guy has a voice of his own. So fiction becomes dangerous. These two aspects of it are anti-totalitarian: its democratic structure and its search for truth.”

Click here to listen to the episode.

Azar Nafisi on How Both Writers and Tyrants Recreate Reality

November 3, 2022 | Literary Hub

How can reading a novel become an act of political rebellion? This is one of the important questions Book Dreams co-hosts Eve Yohalem and Julie Sternberg take up with Azar Nafisi, author of the memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran. Azar’s latest book is Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times. In it, she focuses on the parallels and connections between the totalitarian mindset in Iran and totalitarian tendencies in the United States. Azar notes that tyrants and writers in both countries seek to recreate reality, tyrants by telling us that the truth is what they say it is, and writers by excavating the actual truth.

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Can Iran's protesters prevail against the regime?

November 2, 2022 | CBC

"This movement is a movement of liberation," said Azar Nafisi, who wrote the book Reading Lolita in Tehran and held seminars at her home there in the mid 1990s to discuss the role of women in post-revolutionary Iran with her students.

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“Nuestra cultura son nuestros poetas y fil sofos, no los criminales ques matan inocentes”

November 2, 2022 | XL Semanal

An interview with Azar Nafisi in the Spanish magazine XL Semanal.

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The Drunken Odyssey Podcast: Azar Nafisi

October 4, 2022 | The Drunken Odyssey

This week, I talk with memoirist and literary scholar Azar Nafisi about authoritarianism in Iran and America, and the role literature plays in freedom.

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Hvorfor er litteratur farlig i totalitære regimer?

October 4, 2022 | Den Liberale Tankesmien

Den iranske forfatteren og litteraturprofessoren Azar Nafisi er gjest i denne episoden av Liberal halvtime.

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An Iranian American writer makes a case against censorship and for Rushdie

August 13, 2022 | NPR Morning Edition

Following the attack on author Salman Rushdie, NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Iranian American writer Azar Nafisi about attempts to silence writers. Her latest book is: Read Dangerously.

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‘Books bring us into being’: how writing about reading became an inspiring literary genre of its own

August 13, 2022 | The Guardian

For other female readers and writers, reading itself has been a political act. There is no question of aestheticism in Azar Nafisi’s 2003 Reading Lolita in Tehran, which describes Nafisi’s attempt, after being driven out of the university, to set up a secret, egalitarian community of women, reading together and writing a collective diary of their responses. Discarding their headscarves, they read Lolita, and compare Humbert to the Ayatollah Khomeini: “They had tried to shape others according to their own dreams and desires, but Nabokov, through his portrayal of Humbert, had exposed all solipsists who take over other people’s lives.”

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Literature as resistance: A conversation with Azar Nafisi

July 29, 2022 | Public Radio Tulsa

Our guest is Azar Nafisi, the bestselling Iranian-American writer and professor of English literature. Born in Tehran and based in the United States since 1997, she's well-known for her books "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and "The Republic of Imagination" (among other volumes). She joins us to discuss her latest book, which is a collection of letters-as-essays titled "Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times." It's a work that, per a starred review in Publishers Weekly, takes a "stunning look at the power of reading.... Nafisi's prose is razor-sharp, and her analysis lands on a hopeful note.... This excellent collection provokes and inspires at every turn."

Click here to listen to the conversation.

The Power of Sharing Our Stories

July 10, 2022 | Aspen Ideas

Be it in her commanding, critically acclaimed written works or her masterfully insightful lectures, author and professor Azar Nafisi has given so many others the space and language to reflect on their own — often unseen and unacknowledged — experiences; enlightening and inspiring us all. Moderated by Zinhle Essamuah whose own command of storytelling includes working both in front and behind the camera as a reporter, anchor, professor and award winning cinematographer/director.

Click here to watch the taped discussion.

Tutta colpa di Nabokov

July 9, 2022 | Corriere della Sera

An conversation with Azar Nafisi and the italian publication, Corriere della Sera.

Click here to watch the taped discussion.

“Reading Lolita in Tehran” Author Azar Nafisi on How Freddie Mercury of Queen Helped Her Survive Life in Iran

June 24, 2022 | The Washingtonian

“I first heard him in the early ’80s when I was living in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A group of friends had dinner meetings where we would talk about everything from philosophy to politics to arts. This woman was in love with Freddie Mercury, so she would be talking to me about him and I would be talking to her about the Doors, and that became one way of connecting. You have to know that musical cassettes were forbidden in Iran. You could go to jail. But we all had the underground cassettes, the underground videos—also the underground vodka…

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Truth, totalitarianism at heart of Azar Nafisi’s work

June 16, 2022 | The Inquirer and Mirror

Azar Nafisi doesn’t write unless something bothers her.

Best known as the author of 2003’s “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” Nafisi has been bothered, time and again, by the relationship between truth...

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What Does It Mean To Be A Good Citizen Today?

June 16, 2022 | The Colin McEnroe Show

This episode investigate what it means to be a good citizen today. What are our responsibilities? What do we owe each other? Azar Nafisi joined the conversation.

Click here to listen to full episode.

Azar Nafisi Reads Dangerously

June 9, 2022 | ABC Audio

This episode of The Book Case with Kate & Charlie Gibson podcast interviews Azar Nafisi on her new book, Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times.

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What’s On The Bookshelf: 5 Books About Books

May 20, 2022 | What’s On

Book nerds unite – our friends at the Emirates Literature Foundation have scanned high and low to bring you recommendations for books about books! Featuring writers, readers, librarians, dictionaries, publishers and secret book clubs, today’s listicle will have you flipping through pages on a whistle-stop tour of the literary world.

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Three female authors show us how writing can turn adversity into beauty

May 13, 2022 | NPR

What does this perilous time of disease and destruction ask of us as readers and writers?

Three new books spotlight the power of the written word to foster creative responses to confinement and oppression — and to inspire deep change within us.

Azar Nafisi's Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times, Elena Ferrante's In The Margins: On The Pleasures of Reading and Writing and Anna Quindlen's Write for Your Life are all about the transformative possibilities that underlie political, social and personal crisis.

Click here to read the entire review.

The CBC Books spring reading list: 50 great books to read this season

May 11, 2022 | CBC

Read Dangerously is a nonfiction book that examines the intersecting roles of literary, politics and media. Structured as a series of letters to her father, Read Dangerously looks at her own experience with books, growing up in Islamic Republic of Iran and living as an immigrant in the United States. It asks questions around the power of literature in a troubled world.

Azar Nafisi is an academic and author based in Washington, D.C. Her work includes the New York Times bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, as well as Things I've Been Silent About, The Republic of Imagination and That Other World.

Click here to view the entire list.

How reading helps us build empathy and resist tyranny

April 29, 2022 | The Washington Post

Azar Nafisi’s “Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times” takes the form of five letters to the author’s late father. They were composed during the Trump presidency, as the pandemic and George Floyd’s killing unsettled both the body politic and individual psyches in the United States. The letters are ruminations on the role of humanistic books in places torn by conflict and polarization; but they also, through flashbacks to Nafisi’s home country of Iran, draw unnerving connections between that totalitarian state of her birth and the contemporary America she has adopted as a naturalized U.S. citizen.

By taking this approach, Nafisi pays homage to two writers she offers as models in the book, her sixth. James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates both tackled the unremitting trauma of racism in America through the literary device of letters — Baldwin to his nephew, Coates to his son. Their warnings and their hope were couched as offerings to the next generation. Nafisi, perhaps best known as the author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” might have followed their lead and written to, for example, the two grandchildren whom she was expecting, and who were born, as she wrote “Read Dangerously.” Why, instead, does she address her words to her father, almost two decades dead?

Click here to read the entire review.

Not meant to soothe: How the truths of fiction can challenge and stir

April 27, 2022 | The Christian Science Monitor

Azar Nafisi burst on the literary scene with “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” which recounted her efforts to teach Western literature to a small group of young women in Iran. A risky and challenging undertaking in that totalitarian state, but one that underscored, once again, the power of books to transform lives. In “Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times,” she once again writes about the power of the written word to shape the way we see the world – this time by focusing on the present moment.

Nafisi was born in Tehran, Iran, to open-minded and politically active parents. Her father served as mayor of Tehran for two years but was jailed for political reasons. Before his four-year imprisonment, he instilled in his daughter an abiding love of literature and stories. She was educated abroad, eventually earning a Ph.D. in English literature in the United States. Nafisi returned to Iran and taught there for 18 years before she was expelled from the university for failing to wear a veil. Eventually, she moved to America and became a citizen.

Click here to read the entire review.

From ‘Kaikeyi’ to Cartography, Audiobooks That Make You Question What You Know

April 21, 2022 | The New York Times

In READ DANGEROUSLY: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times (HarperAudio, 8 hours, 28 minutes), the author and narrator explores how books “represent the unruly world, filled with contradictions and complications, a world that threatens the totalitarian mindset by being beyond its control.” In a series of letters addressed to her late father, Nafisi moves effortlessly across the literary landscape that has formed her activist view of the world. From Salman Rushdie to Ray Bradbury, Plato to James Baldwin, Toni Morrison to Margaret Atwood, Nafisi reveals just how timeless stories can be. She revisits old plotlines and characters while living through the presidency of Donald Trump and the never-ending anxiety of the Covid-19 pandemic, all while recalling her early life in Tehran under the Islamic Republic. Nafisi has a talent for combining the academic and the everyday, the theoretical and the personal, and thanks to her deliberate and confident voice, the lessons will stick with us, too.

Click here to read the entire review.

The Pen Ten: An Interview with Azar Nafisi

April 7, 2022 | Pen America

The PEN Ten is PEN America’s weekly interview series. This week, Viviane Eng speaks with Azar Nafisi, author of Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times (HarperCollins).

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‘Literature as resistance.’ Azar Nafisi on the subversive power of reading in troubled times

April 7, 2022 | The Colin McEnroe Show

A conversation between Colin McEnroe and Azar Nafisi.

Click here to listen to the entire review.

Moments of Grace: On Azar Nafisi’s “Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times”

April 6, 2022 | LA Review of Books

Review by Elaine Margolin

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Reading and Thinking Freely

April 4, 2022 | PBS the Open Mind

A conversation with Azar Nafisi and host, Alexander Heffner

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Azar Nafisi on the power of literature to fight authoritarianism

April 2, 2022 | The Sunday Magazine

Between international conflicts, political division, misinformation, rising anti-democratic forces, and a pandemic, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the latest news headlines. But the antidote to that hopelessness may be as close as your bookshelf or local library. So says Azar Nafisi, the acclaimed author who's perhaps best-known for her memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran. Her new collection of essays Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times is a reading list of sorts, written in the form of letters to her late father about the work of writers from Plato and Salman Rushdie, to Margaret Atwood and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Nafisi tells Chattopadhyay why she turned to them for inspiration, as she struggled to make sense of the rise of authoritarianism around the world.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Azar Nafisi - Read Dangerously

March 31, 2022 | Real Fiction Radio

Bestseller author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" discusses her new book "Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times" with Real Fiction host Lori Messing McGarry.

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"Read Dangerously" and explore portable worlds - a conversation with Azar Nafisi

March 28, 2022 | WAMC

A conversation between Azar Nafisi and Joe Donahue

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Do birds still sing in the springtime where there is war?

March 26, 2022 | Valley News

Azar Nafisi in her new book, Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times, points out the importance of people who notice what is happening and write about it. Poets are dangerous, she points out, because they question everything. So, to feel a little better about living in a safe place and having the luxury to go out into nature every day, I will continue to write and to notice and to wonder if musicians and birds stop singing during war.

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Azar Nafisi on Read Dangerously

March 25, 2022 | Lopate at Large

Join us, when NYT Bestselling author Azar Nafisi explores the role of literature in an era when politics can greatly influence writers and the press. Drawing on her experiences as a woman and voracious reader living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, her life as an immigrant in the United States, and her role as literature professor in both countries, Azar has written a guide to the power of literature in turbulent times. In her book READ DANGEROUSLY, Nafisi crafts an argument for why, in a genuine democracy, we must engage with the enemy, and how literature can be a vehicle for doing so, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI 99.5FM.

Click here to listen to the interview.

Azar Nafisi/ Vulgar Geniuses

March 22, 2022 | Vulgar Geniuses

After captivating readers with her debut memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi returns with her fifth book, Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times. Nafisi implores the reader to look to the power of literature as America wrestles with censorship in the aftermath of the Trump presidency. In our conversation with Azar Nafisi, she makes her case for us to be diligent in our pursuit of defending our freedom to read books that challenge us, encourage our growth, and call us to play in the limitless waters of imagination.

Click here to listen to the entire conversation.

Azar Nafisi, Read Dangerously

March 22, 2022 | Thoughts From a Page

Azar and I discuss Read Dangerously, how she selected the authors to include in this book, the reemergence of book banning, coming up with the format she used for the book, how curiosity leads to empathy, the importance of fiction in our lives, and much more.

Click here to listen to the entire conversation.

NPR Book of the Day

March 21, 2022 | NPR

Author Azar Nafisi has written a love letter to literature and reading in Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times. She does this in a series of letters to her late father who passed on in 2004. Nafisi says that reading can help us really live and also help us, and has helped her, survive challenging times. Nafisi told NPR's Scott Simon that literature's purpose is to let us experience new worlds: "to come out of yourself, and join the other."

Click here to listen to her previous interview with Scott Simon.

'Read Dangerously' with Azar Nafisi on Monday's Access Utah

March 21, 2022 | Access Utah

Today our guest is writer Azar Nafisi. We’ll talk about her new book Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times. In this book Nafisi asks: What is the connection between political strife in our daily lives, and the way we meet our enemies on the page in fiction? How can literature, through its free exchange, affect politics?

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Azar Nafisi on the Power of ‘Reading Dangerously’

March 17, 2022 | KQED

Writer Azar Nafisi says totalitarian regimes pay “too much attention to poets and writers, harassing, jailing and even killing them,” but in America the problem is too little attention, silencing them through “indifference and negligence.” Nafisi’s new book, Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times, is written as a series of letters to her late father discussing the writers she turns to when grappling with oppression and injustice, including Salman Rushdie, Plato, Zora Neale Hurston, Ray Bradbury and Margaret Atwood. “I am not talking about literature of resistance but literature as resistance,” she writes, the ways “literature and art resist seats of power – not only that of kings and tyrants, but the tyrant within us as well.”

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The Best Books of 2022

March 10, 2022 | USA Today

USA Today ranked Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times as one of the best books of 2022.

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Azar Nafisi on How Reading is Crucial to our Survival

March 10, 2022 | Public Libraries Associations

Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times is Azar Nafisi’s exhilarating examination of the role literature plays in understanding political systems and those who uphold opposing beliefs. Structured as letters to her deceased father, a compassionate man who instilled a profound respect for the art of storytelling in his children, Nafisi writes about authors who have engaged with the darkest aspects of their societies. In celebrating and studying these disparate writers, Nafisi notes how they created humane works that not only deepens the reader’s understanding of their own world, but also makes them more empathetic in the process. Nafisi also reflects on her family’s fascinating history in the letters, including her father’s imprisonment in Iran for political reasons, her own experience as a young professor living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and her observations living in the United States for over two decades.

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Talkies with Azar Nafisi

March 9, 2022 | KPFA

The cultural, the intellectual, the political, the spiritual — and the silly. Life as we know it, fear it, love it, question it, live it. Hosted by Kris Welch. Guest, Azar Nafisi.

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Resist Tyranny, Read Dangerously

March 8, 2022 | Electric Lit

When I got to an age where I could read the same books as my mom, she started passing them along to me after she had finished. One of the books she gave me was Reading Lolita in Tehran by New York Times best-selling author Azar Nafisi, a book that I remember not only for the window it afforded into life in Iran, but also for the way Nafisi and her students viewed literature as sustenance, as a way of making sense of the world and asking questions of it. As we did after finishing most books, my mom and I talked about Nafisi’s work; our reading encouraged us to start conversations that we are still having with each other about place, politics, gender, history, race, empathy, and so much more.

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New Releases Tuesdays: The Best Books Out This Week

March 8, 2022 | Book Riot

The cultural, the intellectual, the political, the spiritual — and the silly. Life as we know it, fear it, love it, question it, live it. Hosted by Kris Welch. Guest, Azar Nafisi.

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Review by Elayne Clift

March 8, 2022 | New York Journal of Books

“A contemporary treatise on oppression wherever it exists, Read Dangerously raises Nafisi to new heights in the contributions she makes to writing and political analysis.”

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Azar Nafisi on ‘Read Dangerously’ with WHYY

March 8, 2022 | WHYY Radio Times (Philly)

A live conversation with Marty Moss-Coane and Azar Nafisi about book bannings, the state of the world, and Read Dangerously.

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How Books Can Save Our Democracy

March 8, 2022 | Write About Now

A conversation with Azar Nafisi and Jonathan Small.

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The Avid Reader Show

March 7, 2022 | The Avid Reader Show

Host Samuel Hankin speaks with Azar Nafisi on this episode of The Avid Reader Show podcast.

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Bookin’ with Azar Nafisi

March 7, 2022 | Bookin’

Host Jason Jefferies speaks with Azar Nafisi on this episode of Bookin’ podcast.

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Reading Fiction as an Act of Resistance: A Conversation with Azar Nafisi

March 7, 2022 | The Rumpus

Anita Gill talks with Azar Nafisi about Read Dangerously, the state of the country, and the intimacy of letters.

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Azar Nafisi's new book is on what it means to 'Read Dangerously

March 5, 2022 | NPR

Scott Simon speaks with author Azar Nafisi about her new book, "Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times."

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5 Books Not to Miss

March 5, 2022 | USA Today

USA TODAY's Barbara VanDenburgh scopes out the shelves for this week’s hottest new book releases. The author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran” returns with a book championing the power of literature to guide and galvanize in contentious political times in Read Dangerously.

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Books of the Week

March 4, 2022 | Publishers Weekly

Read Dangerously listed as one of the five books of the week. “We need the truth that fiction offers us,” writes Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran) in this stunning look at the power of reading.

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March 2022 Reads for the Rest of Us

March 2, 2022 | Ms. Magazine

From the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran comes an exploration of the power of literature in challenging times that doubles as a guidebook of resistance reads. To say it’s timely would be an understatement.

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Here Are the 10 New Books You Should Read in March

March 1, 2022 | Time Magazine

In Read Dangerously, Azar Nafisi presents a series of letters she wrote to her late father revolving around the idea of literature as resistance. She makes the compelling case that books can help confront societal challenges, and implores her audience to select their reading material mindfully. The book zooms in on titles by authors such as Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, James Baldwin, and Margaret Atwood. Perhaps most significantly, Nafisi—author of Reading Lolita in Tehran—reminds us of the power of reading to help us endure difficult times.

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March 2022 Horoscopes and Book Recommendations

March 1, 2022 | Book Riot

It’s time to step up, Sagittarius. You prefer to live your life floating from adventure to adventure, but March demands a more serious effort to get on track. Taking control of your career and professional goals now can change the course of your year. Show up for the people who love you this month. Romance may also be ahead for you, as long as you know what you’re looking for. I recommend Read Dangerously by Azar Nafisi. After teaching literature in Iran and the U.S., Nafisi has grown to understand the power of books as resistance during turbulent political times. Told in the form of letters to the father who taught Nafisi to find healing in literature, this book explores how reading can be a tool to engage with difficult topics and provides a resistance reading list to address some of today’s most burning questions.

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Opinion: Book bans signal the dangerous direction society is moving

March 1, 2022 | The Washington Post

“First they burn books, then they kill people!”

That line often came to mind when I was living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, every time the regime closed a bookstore or a publishing house, every time it censored, banned, jailed or even killed authors. It never occurred to me that one day I would repeat the same sentiment in a democracy, in my new home, the United States of America.

I’m aware that the United States is not Iran. Its government is not an Islamist regime, and it is not a totalitarian state. But totalitarian tendencies are unquestionably on the rise within segments of this country. We see this in the attempts to curtail women’s rights, in the rise in racism and antisemitism, and in the assault on ideas and imagination best exemplified in the banning of books.

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Banned Books: The Stacks Podcast

February 10, 2022

This episode of The Stacks podcast hosted by Traci Thomas was in response to the wave of book bannings across the United States.

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“Azar”: Tell Them, I Am

April 23, 2021

Podcast produced by former President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground. A conversation between Azar Nafisi and Misha Euceph.

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