“Right now there is a danger for democracies, including the country I call home, that is, the United States. And what I said in ‘Reading Lolita’ is that the danger for the West is what Saul Bellow calls ‘the atrophy of feeling’ and ‘the sleep of conscience’. This is what threatens the West: the fact that we become indifferent, that we wake up in the morning and don’t think that someone is dying for their opinions as we speak.”
This was stated by the writer Azar Nafisi, author of the bestseller ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’ (‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’ published in Italy by Adelphi), during the presentation to the press of the film of the same name by Eran Riklis starring Golshifteh Farahani in competition at the Fest of the Cinema of Rome, before being released in theaters on November 21st distributed by Minerva Pictures. Azar Nafisi returned to the United States in 1997 to teach at the University of Washington.
“This is what this film does – explains Nafisi -. It ‘makes us feel’, it disturbs us because artists are here to disturb not to pamper you. I’m not here to give you comfort, but to make you question, not only the world, but yourself. And as I watched this movie, there were aspects of myself that I didn’t like so much. And that’s exactly what a good film does to you, it makes you want to change.”
‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’ recounts the protagonist’s struggle to transmit beauty and culture to increasingly catechized students after Khomeini’s revolution in 1979 and, once she left public teaching, to share her weekly seminars with her seven best students.
Previously, in a limited meeting with the press, the writer stopped to talk about the situation in Iran where, she said, “the regime is killing people in the streets, shooting bullets into people’s eyes to blind them. We have this violence, but unfortunately it is the violence that attracts the world’s attention – he adds -, unfortunately the media only talks about the violence. When I left Iran my mother told me: it’s about us. Because the Islamic Republic would like to make its population believe that the world does not care about them – he adds – that the world does not want to hear about the Iranians, that the world believes in the tyrants who oppress. And what did the Iranian people do? He created hope – explains the writer – he refused to become like the oppressor”.
Azar Nafisi then says that Iranian women have decided to protest without using violence. “What do they do? They sing. They go through the streets where there is the sound of bullets. And next to the bullets – he said – there is the sound of music, dance and life. Their slogan is: woman, life , freedom”. “These girls are the heirs of the courage of their mothers, of their grandmothers – he continues – of those women who took to the streets in Tehran at the beginning of the revolution and protested against the imposition of the veil. Freedom is neither oriental nor Western, freedom is universal. This was what I wanted to tell with my book, I wanted the West to know that the Israeli and Iranian governments are waging wars, not only in their homeland, but in the region, in the entire world. We, the people, should do as these girls in the book and on the field. We, all of us, should convey the message that hate doesn’t work – he adds – that love works, that humanity needs it. This makes me very happy.”