Previous | Next :: Prof Azar Nafisi : Iranian American Writer : DC | April 23, 2009, 11:39 pm

I started making a list in my diary entitled “Things I Have Been Silent About.” Under it I wrote: “Falling in Love in Tehran. Going to Parties in Tehran. Watching the Marx Brothers in Tehran. Reading Lolita in Tehran.” I wrote about repressive laws and executions, about public and political abominations. Eventually I drifted into writing about private betrayals, implicating myself and those close to me in ways I had never imagined. --From Things I Have Been Silent About

Azar Nafisi, author of the beloved international bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, now gives us a stunning personal story of growing up in Iran, memories of her life lived in thrall to a powerful and complex mother, against the background of a country’s political revolution. A girl’s pain over family secrets; a young woman’s discovery of the power of sensuality in literature; the price a family pays for freedom in a country beset by political upheaval–these and other threads are woven together in this beautiful memoir, as a gifted storyteller once again transforms the way we see the world and “reminds us of why we read in the first place” (Newsday).

I met with and photographed Azar Nafisi for The Times in London she is a fantastic upbeat person....... very personable..... totally fascinating........... Im sure her new book......... Things I Have Been Silent About is well worth reading........ although I myself do not yet have a copy.

I was thinking of Azar Nafisi today as I was listening to reports about the jailing of another Iranian American woman........ Roxana Saberi who has been arrested while reporting from Iran........ I have listened to her reporting many times both on the BBC and NPR ......... I felt sick when I heard she had been jailed for on trumped up charges of spying and sentenced to 8 years...... I feel the new Obama administration's attempts to engage Iran are not wrong and anyway could hardly be less successful than President Bush's attempts at manipulation through isolation............. but I did feel slightly sick that the totally unjustified incarceration of this brave individual reporter by this awful theocracy......... just might just be brushed under the carpet to allow dialogue with the oppressive ayatollahs.

Lets try and engage with Iran but lets not forget Roxana Saberi.

Cheers Jez XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX