I must confess to an ungenerous impulse: perhaps one must be trapped in a fundamentalist state in order to appreciate Lolita. I know that's untrue, as I've a writer friend from America who thinks it's marvelous, but I would have to be desperately bored in order to inflict that mosquito whine of selfishness on myself again. Give me Jane Austen over Nabokov any day. 

If you're Nafisi, of course, you can enjoy both. And you know what, good for her. Not every book will appeal to every reader in the same way. The ability to read any book, though... that's critical. Not just to individual development, but to cultural survival. I'm not talking about the survival of the book, either: any society that's so desperate to purge itself of argument that it restricts access to literature will one day fail. I don't have faith in much, generally, but I do have faith in that. And so when Nafisi, expelled from her university position due to her refusal to wear the veil, continues to teach, it has to be at a smaller scale. Young women, wanting to learn, turning up at her home, transforming tutorship and book clubs into understanding... of stories, of their country, and of themselves. I'd like to think that in their position I'd be doing the same. (I'm not entirely sure that I would. I have a horrible feeling I'd be more likely to withdraw, as the magician does, if I couldn't get the hell out of the country and not ever go back.)

Wherever all the women in this book are now, I hope there are libraries. I hope that those libraries are open to them, and that they can read whatever they want there. We're all poorer for it if they can't.