Thomas Hibbs' begins his essay on Reading Lolita in Tehran this way:
"Perhaps to remain a poet in such circumstances is also to reach the heart of politics. The human feelings, human experiences, the human form and face, recover their proper place — the foreground.” Saul Bellow’s description of the function of art under the regimes of totalitarianism is a recurring motif in Azar Nafisi’s book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, an autobiographical/literary study of the power of literature in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A brilliant and dramatically moving exposition of the power of literature to transform souls and create spaces for the retention of community and identity in the midst of totalitarian oppression, Nafisi’s crisply written book has come under fire as an alleged instrument of neoconservative imperialism. An article by Hamid Dabashi from Columbia University has given rise to mainstream treatments of the controversy in the Chronicle or Higher Education and in major newspapers. In an odd and mostly contrived controversy that says less about contemporary global politics than it does about certain pockets of the contemporary academy, what is at risk of being lost is Nafisi’s powerful account of the nature of liberal education.
Here is Hibbs' concluding paragraph:
If there is a danger in Nafisi’s narrative of liberal education under an oppressive regime, it is that it at times borders on romantic escapism. But that has less to do with her conception of education than with a particular set of external circumstances. In fact, the book provides compelling examples of what is all too rare in contemporary commentary on education today — the transformative power of words when hungry young students encounter remarkable books. If beginners may be put off from literature by the interposition of theories between their souls and great poems and novles, they may still profit from books that whet the appetite for books. Nafisi’s book does that splendidly. Indeed, at its best, it offers an occasion for hungry readers — be they Iranian or American — to experience the transformative power of words for themselves.
Michael Rubin, who pointed out Hibbs' essay to Corner readers, also informs his readers that the Middle East Quarterly has excerpted parts of it. This excerpt is preceeded by an excellent introduction to the book. The introduction begins:
Reading Lolita in Tehran, a new memoir by Azar Nafisi, is the story of Iran's revolution from the unusual vantage point of an Iranian-born, American-schooled instructor of English literature, who arrived at Tehran University in the revolutionary year of 1979. (More)