Things I've Been Silent About

Azar Nafisi (READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN) is unquestionably a unique literary voice. In this memoir we learn that as a rebellious child her relationship with her mother was stormy, that her North Star was her attentive, literature-loving father, and that between them they created a world apart from the bitter, self-absorbed woman her mother became. Memory is, at best, an undependable resource, often colored by imagination, tinged with resentments, or softened to blur unhappy truths. Naila Azad's gentle reading does much to mitigate the dark portrait Nafisi draws of her mother, and once we leave the early memories, Azad's intelligent narration, empathy, subtlety, and exotic voice offer a fascinating look at Iranian culture, mores, and politics, written with grace and style by a master storyteller. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine