"; if(is_file("header.php")) include "header.php"; else include "../header.php"; ?>

Simply brilliant - the human story with a literary twist I picked up this book at Newark Liberty International Airport on my way to Austira about one month ago. With a stopover in Frankfurt, I was able to get through most of it without skipping a word. Reading Lolita in Teheran still haunts me to this day and have inspired me to read more middle Eastern literature. I enjoyed the literary criticism that Nafisi weaves so masterfully in the context of a horrific reality of life in Teheran. Because of this book, I have rediscovered Fitzgerald, Nabakov and Austen among other greats. While there is no climatic ending to the book, one cannot help but be anxious about what happens to the characters at the end of the story. What kind of system punishes women for enjoying the pleasures of an ice-cream cone? And how lucky I am to live in the west where I can express myself as much as I would like to. This is a book that once you pick it up you will find yourself going through floods of emotion (anger, frustration and relief) as you re-live the experiences of these Iranian women living in our times, only hours away from the safety net of our "western decadence".