'Reading dangerously': his latest book published by Adelphi already has an explanatory title. With the masterpiece 'Reading Lolita in Tehran', successfully published 21 years ago now, she also became famous in Italy but Azar Nafisi, one of the best-known Iranian writers, has the communicative ability to be connected with the whole world and her voice she is among the most listened to in the Iranian diaspora.
"I am worried for the first time like never before, we are at a peak of danger never seen before, we are on the edge of a war - says the 76-year-old author who has lived in America in exile for many years in an interview with ANSA -. I am in great anxiety for myself, for my family but not only obviously, what we are seeing is madness - adds the writer who has always been an antagonistic voice to the Tehran government over the phone - to what extent there is this perception in Iran. we have in the West. The fact is that in Iran for some time there has been a real war by the regime against the people who oppose it, the women who take to the streets without veils, the people who dance, the kids who protest, they are leading an incredible and non-violent struggle against which the regime wages a daily war and which is not talked about, which causes victims and torture".
According to Azar Nafisi "there is already a real war in Iran, the attack on Israel is something convenient and not only for the ayatollahs: both they and Netanyahu have huge internal problems that jeopardize their power and therefore I think that the attack of these hours is a weapon of mass distraction for Iran and Israel."
The internal war, as the author who is forced to lead a very prudent life defines it in a cracked voice, "is not political at all, it is an existential war of people who fight to live with rights and democracy. The drone attacks they seem like a video game compared to the bullets that students, girls and many Iranians take in the streets.
These people are a symbol, a beacon for everyone and automatically a target: in every country those who deal with freedom are in danger, not. Randomly women, minorities, intellectuals are attacked by the regime. I wonder, will they put everyone in prison?
Azar Nasifi, as well as a bestselling author, is also an activist, her last call is alongside the American Pen Society to release Narges Mohammadi, the Nobel Prize-winning writer-activist who is in prison in Iran.
Alongside the civilians who were the first victims of the wars, from the Ukrainians to the Palestinians, Azar Nasifi said she was incredulous at the possibility that Trump could be re-elected ("Americans perhaps don't have a clear understanding, compared to other peoples fighting for rights, of the power of democracy"). "I feel close to the words of David Grossman and I act in these dangerous times to make them my own: 'don't become like your enemy', I try every day to remain myself and be in connection with the world that wants to be away from war" , he concludes.
'Reading Lolita in Tehran' is also a film starring Golshifteh Farahani, Zar Amir-Ebrahimi and Mina Kavani and directed by Eran Riklis (The Lemon Garden), an Italian (Minerva) and Israeli production.