Azar Nafisi
Overview
Azar Nafisi born ca. 1947, is an Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian academic and bestselling writer who has resided in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 since 1997 when she emigrated from Iran. Her field is English language literature.
Nafisi's 2003 book Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books is a book by Iranian author and professor Azar Nafisi.Published in 2003, it has been on the New York Times bestseller list for over one hundred weeks and has been translated into thirty-two languages....

 has been translated into 32 languages. It was on the New York Times Bestseller list for 117 weeks, 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
The World Academy of Arts, Literature, and Media
The Persian Golden Lioness Awards were established by the World Academy of Arts, Literature, and Media , which was established by Mustafa Dorbayani in February 2005 in order to support, develop and promote Dramatic and Fine Arts, Creative Writing, Poetry, and Literature as well as Professional...

 for literature.
Quotations

Every great work of art ... is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life.

As I trace the route to his apartment, the twists and turns, and pass once more the old tree opposite his house, I am struck by a sudden thought: memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.

I explained that most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes.

Do not, under any circumstances belittle a works of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.

 
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