April 19, 2005

A veil of oppression covered Iran after the 1979 revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. Azar Nafisi describes the degrading repression and suffocating loss of freedoms during this period in Iran in her memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran (Randam House). Nafisi, will be guest of the University of Louisville Kentucky Author Forum on Tuesday, April 19.

Dr. Nafisi will also be the featured speaker at the Annual Minx Auerbach Lecture in Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Louisville on Monday, April 18, 5:30 PM at the Speed Museum Auditorium. Since 1998, The Department of Women's and Gender Studies has brought outstanding speakers to the campus for this annual lecture. Dr. Sy Auerbach's generous endowment was established in honor of his wife, Minx, who has served the University and the greater Louisville community in numerous ways. This lecture, held each spring, is free and open to the public as well as the University community. For information on this event, please call 852-8160.

Educated in the Switzerland and England, Nafisi taught Western literature at universities in Tehran from 1979 until 1995, when she was fired for refusing to wear a veil. Enduring this period of fervent anti-Westernisn, Nafisi resisted the efforts of her country to retreat to the 6th century and the time of the prophet Muhammad.

For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi led a reading group in her house for seven of her former students. Risking jail or worse from the “Islamic morality” police, the women found release and hope in the two hours together on Thursday mornings. Discussing the classic but forbidden works of Austin, Fitzgerald, James, and Nabokov, their lives became intertwined with the ones they read. They could converse freely, flex their minds, and laugh and talk about their relationships with men, within the sanctuary of her walls.

Outside this world of fiction and ideas, Iranian women could seldom relax from the daily ordeals of reprimands for eating fruit “too suggestively” or allowing a strand of hair to escape from a head scarf. Disobeying the “rules” could lead to jail, flogging, fines, or even rape and execution.

Having grown up in Iran before the mullahs came to power, Nafisi writes of living in “two different time zones simultaneously.” Her father had been mayor of Tehran and her mother was one of the first six women to be elected to the Parliament. After studies abroad and living in the U.S., she returned to Iran in the late 1970s, just as the revolution was cresting. By the time her daughter was born several years later, “the laws had regressed to what they had been before my grandmother’s time”: the age of marriage was lowered to nine (from 18); adultery and prostitution were to be punished by stoning to death, and “women were considered to have half the worth of men.”
“My youthful years had witnessed the rise of two women to the rank of cabinet minister. After the revolution, these same two women were sentenced to death for the sins of warring with God and spreading prostitution….the minister of education and my former high school principal, was put in a sack and stoned or shot to death. These girls, my girls, would in time come to think of these women with reverence and hope: if we’d had women like this in the past, there was no reason why we couldn’t have them in the future,” Nafisi writes.

Nafisi now teaches at Johns Hopkins University.

Anne Taylor Fleming, novelist and nationally recognized television commentator, will interview Nafisi at the evening forum. Fleming has been a regular contributor to CBS Radio, NBC Nightly News, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, as well as to numerous magazines. She published her first work of fiction, Marriage: A Duet, to outstanding reviews in 2003, and is currently at work on a new novel.

Event & Ticket Information

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

10 a.m. Discussion with Azar Nafisi, moderated by Susan Griffin, chair and professor of English, at the University of Louisville, Ekstrom Library Auditorium. Limited to university students, faculty and staff.

The Kentucky Center
5 Riverfront Plaza, Downtown Louisville

The evening's activities are as follows:

5 p.m. Carmichael's book sale and wine and cheese reception provided by Brown- Forman, Lobby

6 p.m. 6 p.m. Interview, Azar Nafisi with Anne Taylor Fleming, Bomhard Theatre.

Live taping with WFPL 89.3 and KET, The Kentucky Network, and "The Spoken Word," which will carry the audio version of the event to 39 public radio stations throughout the southeast and 1.1 million listeners.

Master of Ceremonies is Forum Editor/Book Editor Keith Runyon of The Courier-Journal

7 p.m. Q & A followed by book signing on Bittners' stage set

A $16 ticket includes the above three events. A limited number of discounted tickets of $5 each are available for U of L students, faculty and staff at the KCA box office --U of L photo ID is required.

8:15 p.m. Dinner with Azar Nafisi, hosted by the University of Louisville President James Ramsey, in the Mary Anderson Room. A $100 package ticket includes all evening events, including dinner (Proceeds go to the nonprofit Kentucky Author Forum; $35 is tax-deductible.)

Tickets are available at The Kentucky Center, 502-584-7777 (1-800-775-7777) or TicketMaster at 502-361-3100.

Azar Nafisi will be the guest on WFPL's "State of Affairs" with Julie Kredens on April 19 at 1 PM, repeated at 9 PM. The public can join the conversation with questions and comments, between 1 and 2 PM, by calling 502-814-8255 or toll-free at 877-814-8255.

A taped version of the event will be made available at The Louisville Free Public Library, St. Matthews/Eline Branch, 3940 Grandview Ave., at 11 a.m., Friday, April 22. There is no fee involved, but those interested must sign up in advance due to limited seating. Call the library directly at 574-1771 for further information.

WFPL 89.3 FM and Kentucky Educational Television (KET) will record the event for future broadcast, which will be distributed nationally to PBS affiliates nationwide, under the title: "Conversation with Azar Nafisi."

NOTE TO TV AND PRINT MEDIA: You may cover Azar Nafisi live at the University of Louisville between 10 and 11 p.m. on April 19. Access to a live Kentucky Author Forum feed during the evening interview is always available through KET. If interested, please contact Duncan Hart at 859-258-7296.

The Kentucky Author Forum series is produced by Mary Moss Greenebaum and sponsored by the University of Louisville, Brown-Forman and The Humana Foundation, in cooperation with Bittners, Carmichael's Bookstore, The Courier-Journal, KET, WFPL/89.3 FM, “The Spoken Word” and the Kentucky Center. Questions should be directed to the Kentucky Author Forum office at 502-589-2884.

624 West Main, Second Floor
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Phone 502.589.2884
Fax 502.589.4334
email KYFORUM@aol.com