Azar Nafisi

The foundational text for the acclaimed international best seller Reading Lolita in Tehran “Empathetic, incisive. . . . A sweeping overview of Nabokov's major works. . . . Graceful [and] discerning.”—Kirkus Reviews The ruler of a totalitarian state seeks validation from a former schoolmate, now the nation’s foremost thinker, in order to access a cultural cache alien to his regime....

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • A “brilliant” (The Boston Globe) memoir of one Iranian teacher’s steadfast pursuit to educate young women under a government that sought to stifle them “An inspiring account of an insatiable desire for intellectual freedom.”—USA Today “A poignant, searing tale about the secret ways Iranian women defy...

For the first time, the phenomenal bestselling literary memoir will be published in Penguin Modern Classics. Every Thursday morning in a living room in Iran, over tea and pastries, eight women meet in secret to discuss forbidden works of Western literature. As they lose themselves in the worlds of Lolita, The Great Gatsby, and Pride and Prejudice, gradually they come...