Damsels in distress: manufacturing ‘Lolitas’ for the West in Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran

Abstract

ABSTRACT When Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran was first published in 2003, it was widely acclaimed as a narrative that exemplified the ‘oppression’ of Iranian/Muslim women in post-revolutionary Iran. More importantly, Western critics were quick to praise the text as a testament to the significance of teaching Western literature as a liberating medium for young Iranian women. This paper, however, argues that Nafisi’s representation of the Iranian ‘woman question’ operates within the paradigm of the neo-Orientalist discourse, particularly rejuvenated in the post-9/11 political landscape. More specifically, it will be demonstrated that the representation of Iranian/Muslim women in the narrative is informed by the convergence of Orientalist feminism and feminist Orientalism. As such, the narative serves to further marginalize, silence, and oppress women by demonizing Muslim women, erasing significant historico-political contexts, misrepresenting and oversimplifying the question of the veil, and subjecting Iranian women to a colonial gaze in a quasi-haremesque space.