Reading Lolita in Tehran - Criticism

Criticism

Nafisi's book drew sharp criticism by Columbia Professor Hamid Dabashi, who wrote a critical essay in the June 1 edition of the Egyptian English weekly Al-Ahram. In it, he used the late literary scholar Edward Said's work on Orientalism to critique Nafisi's memoir as evidenced in this quote: "By seeking to recycle a kaffeeklatsch version of English literature as the ideological foregrounding of American empire, Reading Lolita in Tehran is reminiscent of the most pestiferous colonial projects of the British in India, when for example, in 1835 a colonial officer like Thomas Macaulay decreed: 'We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect.' Azar Nafisi is the personification of that native informer and colonial agent, polishing her services for an American version of the very same project."

In a subsequent interview with Z Magazine, Dabashi compared Nafisi to former American soldier Lynndie England, who was convicted of abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

In a critical article published in the academic journal Comparative American Studies titled 'Reading Azar Nafisi in Tehran', Head of the North American Studies Department at University of Tehran Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi argued that "Nafisi constantly confirms what orientalist representations have regularly claimed" and argued she "has produced gross misrepresentations of Iranian society and Islam and that she uses quotes and references which are inaccurate, misleading, or even wholly invented."