The Republic of Imagination

August 4, 2014
Mixing memoir with literary criticism and social critique, Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran) contends that imaginative literature is essential to good citizenship. Having once advanced this thesis regarding her native Iran, she extends it now to her adopted United States. For Nafisi, America’s great works of literature make up a canon of supplementary founding documents, offering a purer articulation of the American dream than pols and pundits. In such books may be found the “Republic of Imagination,” in which heroic characters exemplify humanistic ideals. According to Nafisi, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn epitomizes America’s “national myth”—that of a vagrant underdog declaring his independence from a corrupt society and decamping with his moral courage to the wilderness. Similarly exemplary are “Huck Finn’s Progenies”: Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt and John Singer in Carson McCullers’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Explaining how she came to appreciate the civic value of these books, Nafisi suggests that, as a refugee from a repressive regime, she can claim a privileged perspective on American ideals. Her social critique is scarcely original: most readers have heard that the downside of American freedom is American greed, that politicians are demagogues, and that American media is polarized. Through accessible and informative readings, however, Nafisi succeeds in conveying her broader point—that Great American Novels can teach us to be good “citizen readers.” Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency.

July 15, 2014
The Iranian-American author of Reading Lolita inTehran (2003) makes a passionate argument for returning to keyAmerican novels in order to foster creativity and engagement.Having taught literature both in post-revolutionary Iran andin America, teacher and author Nafisi (Things I've Been Silent About,2008, etc.) finds in works by Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis and Carson McCullersimportant lessons in combating nefarious trends in the West: insular thinking,bias and a utilitarian mindset. Literature, writes the author, is deliciouslysubversive because it fires the imagination and challenges the status quo. Thiscan be dangerous in an authoritarian, repressive state such as Iran, but it isnecessary for an informed citizenry. In America, however, where Nafisi became acitizen in 2008, she finds that the free access to democratic ideals andinstitutions have bred a complacency toward and even scorn for what cannot beused for political or ideological purposes, namely the liberal arts. In thecharacter of Twain's Huck Finn, Nafisi's first and favorite example, she findsa quintessential American character from whom all others derive: asearching soul and a homeless "mongrel" whose "sound heart" gradually beats outhis "deformed conscience." In Babbitt, from Lewis' 1922 eponymous novel, Nafisireacquaints us with a smug, self-congratulatory figure of conformity who(still) mirrors our contemporary selves. In the fragile, childlike charactersof McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), Nafisinotes the yearning for personal integrity and shared humanity. The author'sliterary exegesis lightly moves through her own experiences as a student,teacher, friend and new citizen. Touching on myriad literary examples, from L.Frank Baum to James Baldwin, her work is both poignant and informative.A literary study that derives its emotional power fromNafisi's personal story and relationship.

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Starred review from October 1, 2014

Nafisi's (Reading Lolita in Tehran) mesmerizing book is difficult to categorize. It is part memoir and literary criticism with a dash of American history, politics, and current affairs. The author considers what fictional works mean to American culture through a study of character, plot, settings, and more in three novels: Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt, and Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Her examination illustrates the powerful influence of fiction on a personal and national level. What makes this study especially interesting is that Nafisi is an immigrant to the United States. For her, a reader of American literature before becoming an American citizen, the idea of America is so intertwined with its fictional works that she originally considered titling the book Becoming an American. "America, to my mind," she writes, "cannot be separated from its fiction." VERDICT Readers may rediscover classic books or see them in a new light through Nafisi's critique. The topic and approachability of this work will likely give it a broad readership. Recommended for most public and academic libraries. [See Prepub Alert, 4/21/14.]--Stacy Russo, Santa Ana Coll. Lib., CA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2014

Author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Reading Lolita in Tehran, Nafisi responded to a reader's comment that books don't matter to Americans the way they did to Nafisi's Iranian students by analyzing her most beloved works of American literature, especially The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Babbitt, and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. With an eight-city tour.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2014

Nafisi's (Reading Lolita in Tehran) mesmerizing book is difficult to categorize. It is part memoir and literary criticism with a dash of American history, politics, and current affairs. The author considers what fictional works mean to American culture through a study of character, plot, settings, and more in three novels: Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt, and Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Her examination illustrates the powerful influence of fiction on a personal and national level. What makes this study especially interesting is that Nafisi is an immigrant to the United States. For her, a reader of American literature before becoming an American citizen, the idea of America is so intertwined with its fictional works that she originally considered titling the book Becoming an American. "America, to my mind," she writes, "cannot be separated from its fiction." VERDICT Readers may rediscover classic books or see them in a new light through Nafisi's critique. The topic and approachability of this work will likely give it a broad readership. Recommended for most public and academic libraries. [See Prepub Alert, 4/21/14.]--Stacy Russo, Santa Ana Coll. Lib., CA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.