Azar Nafisi

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Azar Nafisi, giving a lecture in the Spanish National Library (2010)

Azar Nafisi ( Persian آذر نفیسی; * 1947 or 1955 in Tehran , Iran ) is an Iranian-American university professor and writer who is committed to women's and human rights in Muslim cultures. Her best-known work is the autobiographical novel Lolita read in Tehran , published in 2003 , in which she reports on her life and experiences in the Islamic Republic of Iran .

Life

Azar Nafisi grew up in Tehran. Her father, Ahmad Nafisi, was mayor of Tehran from 1961 to 1963, and her mother was a teacher. At the age of 13, Nafisi left Iran to attend a school in Lancaster, England, and later another in Switzerland. At the age of 17 she married without the support of her parents and left Iran again with her husband for the USA. In Norman, Oklahoma, Nafisi studied English and American literature. At the university there, she joined the Iranian student movement, but never became a committed activist. In 1972 she completed her bachelor's degree in English literature and philosophy, and in 1974 her master's degree in English literature. After three years of marriage, she divorced, but remained in Norman. In 1977 she married Bijan Naderi.

In 1979, just before the start of the Islamic Revolution , the couple returned to Iran. Nafisi taught at the English faculty of Tehran University , finished her dissertation on The Literary Wars of Mike Gold: A Study of the Proletarian Literature of the 1930s . In the same year she was awarded a doctorate in English and American literature.

Since conditions in Iran worsened, it was no longer possible to leave the country from 1980. In 1981 she was suspended from the university for refusing to use veils. So she was forced to stay at home for several years. She gave birth to her first child in 1984, and her second the following year. In 1988 she began teaching again as a visiting professor at the Free Islamic University and Allameh Tabatabai University. She worked on her first book, which was published in Iran in 1994

From 1995 to 1997 Nafisi gave private workshops for selected female students in her home in Tehran. At these meetings not only literary topics, but also questions about cultural studies and human rights were discussed. The meetings had to take place in secret due to the strict rules that the Islamic regime imposed on women and formed the basis for Lolita reading in Tehran . In 1997, Nafisi and her family finally emigrated to the USA. In the same year she accepted a professorship at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. She still teaches there today.

Awards

  • Cristóbal Gabarrón Foundation International Thought and Humanities Award (2011)
  • The Don and Arvonne Fraser Human Rights Award (2010)
  • The Elizabeth Ann Seton Woman of Courage Award (2010)
  • Inclusion in "The 100 Best Books of the Decade" by the London Times for Lolita reading in Tehran (2009)
  • Persian Golden Lioness Award for Literature from the World Academy of Arts, Literature, and Media (2006)
  • Frederic W. Ness Book Award (2005)
  • The Book Standard Bestsellers Award (2005)
  • Grand Prix des Lectrices d 'Elle (2005)
  • Achievement Award from the American Immigration Law Foundation (2005)
  • Prix ​​du Meilleur livre étranger (2004) for Reading Lolita in Tehran
  • BookSense (2004) Non-fiction Book of the Year Award
  • Latifeh Yarsheter Book Award (2004)
  • Encyclopaedia Iranica Award for Literature (2004)
  • Finalist for the PEN / Martha Albrand Award for Memoir (2004)
  • Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Oklahoma (2001)

criticism

While Nafisi's publications are mostly celebrated in the USA and Europe, the author repeatedly receives negative criticism from the Muslim world, especially for reading Lolita in Tehran , and is repeatedly denounced as a polluter . Above all, the controversial Iranian-American university professor Hamid Dabashi accused Nafisi of betraying her native Iran and supporting the “American Empire” in an article published in 2008 in Al-Ahram Weekly to propagate completely wrong, "extreme" image of Iran.

Publications

In 2003 Azar Nafisi Reading Lolita in Tehran published (German: Lolita read in Tehran ), "the protocol of the devastation of their homeland over a period of two decades". The book has been translated into 32 languages, won numerous prizes and made the author internationally known. In addition to teaching, Azar Nafisi is a regular contributor to books and writes for newspapers such as the New York Times , Washington Post , Wall Street Journal and the New Republic .

Books

  • Antiterra: A Critical Study of Vladimir Nabokov's Novels. Tarh-e No Publishing House, Tehran, Iran 1994
  • Reading Lolita in Tehran. A Memoir in Books. Random House, 2003. Dt. Reading Lolita in Tehran . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Munich 2005, ISBN 3-421-05851-2 .
  • Things I've Been Silent About. Memories of a Prodigal Daughter. Random House, 2008. Dt. My mother's beautiful lies. Memories of my Iranian family . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2010, ISBN 3-421-04428-7 .
  • Republic of imagination. The case for fiction . Illustrations by Peter Sis. Heinemann, London 2014, ISBN 978-0-434-02215-1 , ISBN 978-0-434-02216-8

Essays

  • Images of Women in Classical Persian Literature and the Contemporary Iranian Novel. In: The Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran . Syracuse University Press, Syracuse 1994. ISBN 0-8156-2633-9
  • Imagination as Subversion: Narrative as a Tool of Civic Awareness. In: Muslim Women and the Politics of Participation. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse 1997. 58-71. ISBN 0-8156-2759-9
  • Personal Status Codes and Women's Rights in the Maghreb. In: Muslim Women and the Politics of Participation: Implementing the Beijing Platform. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse 1997. ISBN 0-8156-2760-2
  • Tales of Subversion : Women Challenging Fundamentalism in the Islamic Republic. In: Religious Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women. St. Martin's Press, New York 1999. ISBN 0-312-21897-4
  • They the People: Our Abandoned Muslim Allies. In: The New Era of Terrorism: Selected Readings . Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks 2004 ISBN 0-7619-8873-4
  • Women, culture, human rights: The case of Iran. In: The Future of the United Nations: Promoting Democracy; Preventing Genocide . Foreign Policy Association, New York 2005. OCLC number 62790964
  • The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of. In: My Sister, Guard Your Veil, My brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices . Beacon Press, Boston 2006. ISBN 0-8070-0463-4
  • Mysterious Connections that Link Us Together. In: This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women . Henry Holt, New York 2006. ISBN 0-8050-8658-7
  • Women's Rights: Not Just for Westerners. In: Global Issues 05/06 . Dubuque, McGraw-Hill 2007

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Year of birth discussion on the Internet. The exact year of birth is unclear, mostly the information “around 1947” and “1955” is given. Retrieved April 2, 2012
  2. ↑ Azar Nafisi in an interview with the BBC. Retrieved April 2, 2012
  3. ↑ a b c d Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-421-05851-2 .
  4. ↑ Azar Nafisi's Official Website.Retrieved April 2, 2012
  5. ↑ London Times: The 100 Best Books of the Decade.Retrieved April 2, 2012
  6. ↑ Hamid Dabashi: Native informers and the making of the American empire. ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 2, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / weekly.ahram.org.eg
  7. ↑ Fatemeh Keshavarz: Jasmine and Stars: Reading more than Lolita in Tehran. Page 110. University of North Carolina Press, Columbia SC 2007, ISBN 0-8078-3109-3 .
  8. ↑ Parucista Bahar: The Shirt of Revolt . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 7, 2005, p. 16
  9. ↑ Azar Nafisi: Woman's Rights: Not Just for Westerners. Retrieved April 2, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Nafisi, Azar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iranian-American university professor, writer and intellectual
DATE OF BIRTH 1947 or 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Tehran , Iran