English literature beyond the veil

By Darrell Laurant

Published: September 17, 2008

Azar Nafisi’s focus has always been the human heart, not the human head.

But it was her head, and whether or not it was covered by the traditional Islamic veil, that caused authorities in her native Iran to focus on her.

“Wearing the veil is an act of reverence,” said Nafisi, who will be speaking at Sweet Briar College’s Murchison Lane Auditorium tonight (8 p.m.). “When the state orders it, it loses that significance.”

Best-known for her book “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books,” Nafisi has become a citizen of the world. She was sent to school in England at 13, received a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Oklahoma and returned to Tehran in 1979 to teach — only to discover that English literature was a volatile subject for the newly installed Islamic government of the Ayatollah Khoumeini.

Everything from then on was a struggle. Nafisi was expelled from the University of Iran in 1981 for refusing to wear the veil, taught at several other schools, then finally decided to escape the constant harassment by inviting seven members of her last class — all women — to meet at her home and discuss such controversial books as “Lolita,” “Madame Bovary” and “The Great Gatsby,” as well as Henry James and Jane Austen.

“I never thought of writing a book about that class,” she said, “and I never thought I’d write a memoir. It just happened.”

The book alternates between her recollections of those forbidden literary sessions and the lives of the students they affected. Yet her appearance tonight, part of Sweet Briar’s International Writers’ Series, will not be a reading.

“I’ve always believed that people would want to read the book themselves,” she said with a laugh.

What she will talk about, among other things, is how her adopted country tends to look at Iran through the lens of network news programs.

“The reality,” she said, “is that the people in Iran are in advance of the regime. Over the years, women have been flogged and jailed for wearing clothing considered provocative to the state, but still they go into the streets. There are many ways of thinking there, but over here Iran is reduced to one thing, which is religion. And then religion is simplified.

“You never talk about the United States as a ‘Christian country,’ even though it is, and even though not all Christians would agree with Jerry Falwell.”

Currently a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Nafisi has become involved with the Dialogue Project, which brings together Iranian and American students to discuss such topics as Iranian cinema and other art forms.

Her book, she admits, took on a life of its own. It was roundly praised for its craftsmanship and originality, but several Iranian-born academics in the U.S. accused Nafisi for being a “tool of neoconservatives” for bringing out the repressive nature of Iranian society. Meanwhile, a Washington Post Middle East reporter asked young Iranians about the book (which is not allowed to be published there) and was told that things had changed for the better since Nafisi left in 1997.

Nafisi doesn’t seem concerned with that. Rather, she hopes Americans will look at Islamic fundamentalism and see not an alien threat, but a warning in the mirror.

“It is very wrong to think that fundamentalism or democracy are geographically determined,” she said. “We are all capable of the worst and the best.”