Survival literature.(Book Review)

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books By Azar Nafisi Random House, 368 pages, $23.95

The first literary genius of the East, spinning her tales a millennium ago, was a clever woman named Sheherezade who defied her king-husband's vow to kill her (as he had her predecessors). By weaving a mix of reality, fiction, and humor into her storytelling, the queen of Persian imagination succeeds not only in postponing her death, but in achieving the immortality of fable and legend.

How ironic that Persia's current regime should consider Sheherezade's life-saving gift, the free imagination, to be its most ferocious enemy. Like all totalitarian regimes, Iran's current government seeks to dictate both behavior and thought.

In her new book, Azar Nafisi perfectly describes her countrymen as having "become the figment of someone else's dream."

A professor of comparative literature, Nafisi resigned from the University of Tehran in 1995 after refusing to dress according to the regulations of the self-styled Islamic regime. She didn't mean to be a hero; but neither would she allow her spirit to be killed by the mindless new kings.

Her superb bestseller, Reading Lolita in Tehran, which describes the nightmare that has been gripping Iran for much longer than one thousand and one nights, is testimony to that determination. The book is a record of the literary discussions that Nafisi and seven young women held in her home for two years until she left for the United States with her husband and children in 1997. Although her country has yet to emerge from darkness, this book charts the way.

An actor in the drama of her country, a writer of subtle style ...