Azar Nafisi brings her 'portable home' to BookExpo
Humorist and reporter for Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, John Hodgman introduced Iranian-born academc, free speech activist, and bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran Azar Nafisi at a 2008 BookExpo America Sunday breakfast panel that included Dennis Lehane and Ted Turner. Having emigrated from Iran in 1997 after years of schooling in England and the U.S., receiving a Ph.D in English and American literature at the University of Oklahoma, Nafisi delivered a passionate celebration of books as protest against tyranny and slammed censorship and its crippling effects. Dramatizing the dangers of state-controlled information and news, Nafisi compared the cultural stereotypes vs. the truthabout the U.S., Iran, and Europe. Having celebrated virtually every book ever written, Nafisi wrapped her BookExpo appearance by introducing her own new book, Things I've Been Silent About (Random House; December, 2008), reflecting on her memories of childhood and her parents, and concluding that her imagination and memories represent a 'portable home' for her, accessible under any conditions wherever she may be.
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Azar Nafisi brings her 'portable home' to BookExpo
