“The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable.”

— Azar Nafisi, book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Context: I explained that most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes.

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Azar Nafisi28

Iranaian academic and writer 1955

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