Abstract: AbstractAbstractOver the past few years, partially as a result of the success of Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, a cluster of memoirs have been written by members of the Iranian diaspora. Almost all of them become deeply enmeshed in the politics of rendering Iran from a transnational perspective. Hence, in these memoirs, representation is regularly interwoven with other aims and projections, which militate against accuracy. In this article, an attempt will be made to show that Reading Lolita in Tehran is a work of one who has 'Westernized' her outlook; Nafisi constantly confirms what orientalist representations have regularly claimed: the backwardness and inferiority of Muslims and Islam. This article will attempt to show that Nafisi has produced gross misrepresentations of Iranian society and Islam and that she uses quotes and references which are inaccurate, misleading, or even wholly invented.Keywords: AZAR NAFISIREADING LOLITA IN TEHRANIRANMEMOIRSDIASPORAORIENTALISMMARJANE SATRAPIPERSEPOLIS Additional informationNotes on contributorsSeyed Mohammed MarandiSeyed Mohammad Marandi is an Assistant Professor of English Literature at the University of Tehran and Head of Department of North American Studies. Seyed is also an honorary research fellow in the Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham. He has most recently co-authored a book entitled The British Media and Muslim Representation: The Ideology of Demonisation, published by the Islamic Human Rights Commission in Great Britain.
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 12
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot