Azar Nafisi is a critically acclaimed author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, Things I’ve Been Silent About, The Republic of Imagination, That Other World, and most recently, Read Dangerously. In 2024, Reading Lolita in Tehran was adapted into a film directed by Eran Riklis, and has been shown in the U.S. and several European countries. In addition, Nafisi has penned pieces for The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, among other outlets, and has published several book introductions and forewords.
Her books explore totalitarian mindsets, the power of fiction and imagination, and engage with personal memories from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nafisi was born in Tehran, Iran, and received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. She returned to Iran as an English literature professor during the Iranian Revolution. She was later expelled for refusing mandatory Islamic covering and in 1997, she became a fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins and later, Georgetown University. Nafisi has won many awards, including the Cristóbal Gabarrón Foundation International Thought and Humanities Award, the 2015 Benjamin Franklin Creativity Laureate Award, and several honorary doctorates.