© 2024 Public Radio Tulsa
800 South Tucker Drive
Tulsa, OK 74104
(918) 631-2577

A listener-supported service of The University of Tulsa
classical 88.7 | public radio 89.5
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Literature as resistance: A conversation with Azar Nafisi (Encore)

Aired on Friday, July 29th.
Aired on Friday, July 29th.

"Nafisi...has a talent for combining the academic and the everyday, the theoretical and the personal, and thanks to her deliberate and confident voice, the lessons [in this book] will stick with us, too." -- The New York Times Book Review

(Note: This interview first aired earlier this year.) Our guest is Azar Nafisi, the bestselling Iranian-American writer and professor of English literature. Born in Tehran and based in the United States since 1997, she's well-known for her books "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and "The Republic of Imagination" (among other volumes). She joins us to discuss her latest book, which is a collection of letters-as-essays titled "Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times." It's a work that, per a starred review in Publishers Weekly, takes a "stunning look at the power of reading.... Nafisi's prose is razor-sharp, and her analysis lands on a hopeful note.... This excellent collection provokes and inspires at every turn."

Related Content
  • Our summer reading series profiles Azar Nafisi, author of Lolita in Tehran. She is currently the director of the Dialogue Project at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. She has just finished Diane Ravitch's The Language Police, and lists Address Unknown by Kathrine Taylor as one of her favorite books. Nafisi also regularly revisits Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.
  • Ray Bradbury has died at the age of 91. He wrote such classics as The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451. Futuristic tales from a man who never used a computer, or even drove a car.
  • Sure, you loved "The Catcher in the Rye" at the age of 16...but would you still love it? You appreciated "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Cannery Row" way…
  • As a librarian, it’s been heartening to see so many people sharing reading lists in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. For those who identify…