Azar Nafisi

Azar Nafisi, Ph.D. (born December 1, 1955) is an Iranian academic and writer who has resided in the United States since 1997 when she emigrated from Iran. Nafisi is currently a visiting Fellow and lecturer at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and serves on the Board of Trustees of Freedom House. Nafisi's bestselling book Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books has gained a great deal of public attention and has been translated into 32 languages. It was on the New York Times Bestseller list for 117 weeks, and has won numerous literary awards, including the 2004 Non-fiction Book of the Year Award from Booksense, and the Europe based Persian Golden Lioness Award for literature. The book also led to controversy about Nafisi's alleged connections to neoconservatism and colonialism. She published a second memoir, ' (2008), in which she narrates the upheavals in her dysfunctional family, including her childhood sexual abuse, and her father's incarceration under the Shah on trumped-up charges of financial irregularities.