“Reading dangerously. The subversive power of literature in difficult times” by Azar Nafisi (Adelphi, 2024 – translated by Anna Rusconi)
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by Anna Retini
Have you never read “Reading Lolita in Tehran”? Bad. Don’t you know Azar Nafisi? Very bad. Don’t worry. There’s always time to fix it. Maybe you could do it starting from reading “Reading Dangerously. The subversive power of literature in difficult times”. Because, admit it (let’s face it), we can only agree: the times we are living in are difficult. Moreover. Very difficult.
Azar Nafisi, therefore. Do you want to know who he is? (for those who don’t know, obviously).
Here is a short minibiography.
Azar Nafisi, daughter of Ahmad Nafisi, former mayor of Tehran, and Nezhat, the first woman elected to the Iranian parliament, began her studies in England at the age of 13 and continued in the United States, graduating in English literature and American. She returned to Iran and taught Anglo-American literature at the University of Tehran for 18 years, until she was expelled due to restrictions imposed by the Ayatollah’s government. Subsequently, she continued to teach almost clandestinely to a small group of students, as described in her best seller “Reading Lolita in Tehran”. For some years you resumed university teaching, but not in the capital. In 1997 she moved to the United States with her husband and two children, where she obtained a teaching position at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.
We have already mentioned the subtitle of this book. But the title? It makes you think. At least. “Reading dangerously”. Question: What does it mean to read dangerously? Another question: what relationship is there between reading and danger?
Let’s think about it, trying to enter the pages of this book.
“Read Dangerously. The subversive power of literature in difficult times” by Azar Nafisi (Adelphi, Translation by Anna Rusconi) is first and foremost a work that is striking for its depth and timeliness. Through a series of letters to his late father, Nafisi masterfully weaves autobiographical narrative, literary criticism, and philosophical reflection, offering a powerful meditation on the role of literature in resisting oppression and promoting human understanding.
Nafisi, an author already acclaimed (as already mentioned) for the success of “Reading Lolita in Tehran”, does not limit herself to retracing her personal experiences under the authoritarian Iranian regime and as an Iranian-American immigrant. With her vibrant and insightful pen, she analyzes works by classic and contemporary authors such as Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, David Grossman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, showing how literature can shed light on universal questions of social justice, identity and freedom .
The author is not afraid to tackle hot and controversial issues, from racial discrimination to religious extremism. More: through her reflections, Nafisi invites us to confront the injustices of the world and find the courage to fight for a more just and compassionate future.
Let’s say it. “Reading Dangerously” is not just a book about literature, but it is a call to action. Nafisi reminds us that literature has the power to subvert our beliefs, open us to new perspectives, and inspire us to become agents of positive change.
Azar Nafisi’s is a message in a bottle that navigates the turbulent waters of the 1920s of this new millennium. And, in an increasingly divided and uncertain world, it is a fundamentally important message.
It’s up to you, it’s up to us, to retrieve it and read it; because if you think about it, perhaps, the greatest danger is represented by not reading.
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The book description: “Reading dangerously. The subversive power of literature in difficult times” by Azar Nafisi (Adelphi, 2024 – translated by Anna Rusconi)
“As long as we can imagine, we are free,” David Grossman said. But – one might object – isn’t this a luxury reserved for writers? In other words: does literature have real power over our daily lives?
The five letters that Azar Nafisi addressed to his father between 2019 and 2020, continuing a dialogue that his death did not interrupt, are the most persuasive answer to this crucial question. While around her, even in the United States, reality becomes increasingly alarming – from the emergence of totalitarian tendencies to the Covid-19 pandemic – and indignation and anguish seem to overwhelm her, Azar Nafisi returns to immerse herself in the books she loved most, and shows us, intertwining autobiographical story and reflection on literature, how Salman Rushdie and Zora Neale Hurston, David Grossman and Margaret Atwood, and others, accompanied her in the most difficult moments, like real talismans. And they have opened up to her, with their multivocality, unexpected perspectives: teaching her, for example, to doubt the suffocating dichotomy between aggressor and victim; to see in hatred and anger, apparently capable of conferring identity, an escape from pain – to understand that great literary works are truly dangerous, since they unmask every tyrannical impulse, outside and within us. So reading them dangerously means welcoming the restlessness and the desire for knowledge that they give us.
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Azar Nafisi at Adelphi published: Reading Lolita in Tehran (2004), The things I didn’t say (2009), The republic of the imagination (2015), That other world. Nabokov and the enigma of exile (2022) e Read dangerously. The subversive power of literature in difficult times (2024).
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