@brittarnhild
Some years ago I read Azar Nafisi´s book Reading Lolita in Tehran, and since then I have been curious to learn more about this Iranian author. So when I literary left USA and Betty Smith´s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, it was easy to chose Iran and Nafisi and her book Things I´ve Been Silent About.
The book is an autobiography, and also a tale of Iran´s moderny history, seen through the author´s eyes. Nafisi is now an American citizen, but grew up in Iran, and with political active parents lived close to many of the country´s important events. As an autobiography it is of course seen through the writer´s eyes, and sometimes I wonder if she really has to write such negative things about her family, especially her mother. But the book is more. What I like most about it, and about Nafisi´s authorship, is the way she shares her deep love for books. Like what she express through the words of a student:
"It is funny now that I think of it" she said, "before the revolution I most probably would have given in to an arranged marriage, to spite the government, but now I am not sure anymore. I guess this is what the novel is, it makes us think about these things - or something like that."
I find it a bit hard to write my own review, so instead I share here the words written on the back cover of the book:
In this stunning personal story of growing up in Iran, Azar Nafisi shares her memoirs of living in thrall to a powerful and complex mother against the backdrop 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 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.
I have an Iranian friend who lives in Tehran. I have asked her about this book, this author and her country and am looking forward to hear what she thinks.
By the way, here is a link to a review of the book in The Guardian.
PS - the photo is from Paris and has nothing to do neither with Nasifi nor Iran :-)
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