Azar Nafisi

Azar Nafisi is an Iranian-American writer and professor of English literature. Born in Tehran, Iran in 1948, she has been a U.S. citizen since 2008. Nafisi has held various academic positions, including director of the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Dialogue Project and Cultural Conversations. She has also been a fellow at Oxford University and a Centennial Fellow at Georgetown Walsh School of Foreign Service. Nafisi gained widespread recognition for her 2003 book, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, which remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 117 weeks. She has received numerous literary awards, including the 2004 Non-fiction Book of the Year Award from Booksense.