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—From Things I Have Been Silent About
Azar Nafisi, author of the beloved international bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, now gives us a stunning personal story of growing up in Iran, memories of her life lived in thrall to a powerful and complex mother, against the background of a country’s political revolution. A girl’s pain over family secrets; a young woman’s discovery of the power of sensuality in literature; the price a family pays for freedom in a country beset by political upheaval–these and other threads are woven together in this beautiful memoir, as a gifted storyteller once again transforms the way we see the world and “reminds us of why we read in the first place” (Newsday).
Nafisi’s intelligent and complicated mother, disappointed in her dreams of leading an important and romantic life, created mesmerizing fictions about herself, her family, and her past. But her daughter soon learned that these narratives of triumph hid as much as they revealed. Nafisi’s father escaped into narratives of another kind, enchanting his children with the classic tales like the Shahnamah, the Persian Book of Kings. When her father started seeing other women, young Azar began to keep his secrets from her mother. Nafisi’s complicity in these childhood dramas ultimately led her to resist remaining silent about other personal, as well as political, cultural, and social, injustices.
Reaching back in time to reflect on other generations in the Nafisi family, Things I’ve Been Silent About is also a powerful historical portrait of a family that spans many periods of change leading up to the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79, which turned Azar Nafisi’s beloved Iran into a religious dictatorship. Writing of her mother’s historic term in Parliament, even while her father, once mayor of Tehran, was in jail, Nafisi explores the remarkable “coffee hours” her mother presided over, where at first women came together to gossip, to tell fortunes, and to give silent acknowledgment of things never spoken about, and which then evolved into gatherings where men and women would meet to openly discuss the unfolding revolution.
Things I’ve Been Silent About is, finally, a deeply personal reflection on women’s choices, and on how Azar Nafisi found the inspiration for a different kind of life. This unforgettable portrait of a woman, a family, and a troubled homeland is a stunning book that readers will embrace, a new triumph from an author who is a modern master of the memoir.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
December 30, 2008 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781415958278
- File size: 387955 KB
- Duration: 13:28:14
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Azar Nafisi (READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN) is unquestionably a unique literary voice. In this memoir we learn that as a rebellious child her relationship with her mother was stormy, that her North Star was her attentive, literature-loving father, and that between them they created a world apart from the bitter, self-absorbed woman her mother became. Memory is, at best, an undependable resource, often colored by imagination, tinged with resentments, or softened to blur unhappy truths. Naila Azad's gentle reading does much to mitigate the dark portrait Nafisi draws of her mother, and once we leave the early memories, Azad's intelligent narration, empathy, subtlety, and exotic voice offer a fascinating look at Iranian culture, mores, and politics, written with grace and style by a master storyteller. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine -
Azar Nafisi brought alive her passions of teaching and literature in her first book, READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN. Now she applies her passions to tales of her own life. As her storytelling skill transports readers to faraway Iran, her accent is like an exotic perfume. It's no accident that she begins her book with a narrative of how, when she was a child, her father told her classical stories of Ferdowsi, a tenth-century Persian writer who mingled poetry and history. Her words are beautifully chosen as her personal and political perceptions develop and intertwine. Nafisi tells painful truths about her relationships with her parents and her marriages, as well as the anxiety of living and raising children during the under Khomeini during the war with Iraq. Her writings, taken from diary entries, show courage and eloquence. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
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November 10, 2008
Nafisi follows up the internationally acclaimed Reading Lolita in Tehran
with another memoir, concentrating this time on her unhappy family life. Her mother was vocally nostalgic for her first marriage to a man who died two years after their wedding day, while her father sought the company of other women—not so much for sexual excitement as for emotional stability. Nafisi's parents' relationship was so off-kilter that when her father, the mayor of Tehran, was accused of plotting against the shah and thrown into jail, one of his main hopes was that it would finally reconcile them. Nafisi grew up determined to “become the woman claimed she had wanted to be,” but an adolescent education in England and an impulsive first marriage (followed by college in the U.S.) did not bring the happiness she sought. The calm candor with which she narrates her experiences, from childhood sexual abuse to a frightening confrontation when her second husband argues with a religious zealot over her unscarved hair, provides a solid emotional anchor—and the intimate drama at her memoir's core, the conflicting frustration with a parent and the desire for connection, is one that will resonate with readers everywhere.
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