Heather Finicky’s Reviews > Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books > Status Update

To have a whole life, one must have the possibility of publicly shaping and expressing private worlds, dreams, thoughts and desires, of constantly having access to a dialogue between the public and private worlds. How else do we know that we have existed, felt, desired, hated, feared?

I have a recurring fantasy that one more article has been added to the Bill of Rights: the right to free access to imagination. I have come to believe that genuine democracy cannot exist without the freedom to imagine and the right to use imaginative works without any restrictions.

the first law to be repealed, months before the ratification of a new constitution, was the family-protection law, which guaranteed women’s rights at home and at work. The age of marriage was lowered to nine—eight and a half lunar years, we were told; adultery and prostitution were to be punished by stoning to death; and women, under law, were considered to have half the worth of men

The polarization created by the regime confused every aspect of life. […] At all times, from the very beginning of the revolution […], the regime never forgot its holy battle against its internal enemies. All forms of criticism were now considered […] dangerous to national security. Those groups and individuals without a sense of loyalty to the regime’s brand […] were excluded

It did not take long, however, for the government to announce its intention to suspend classes and to form a committee for the implementation of the cultural revolution. […] What they wanted was not very clear, but they had no doubt as to what they didn’t want. They were given the power to expel undesirable faculty, staff and students, to create a new set of rules and a new curriculum.

Teaching […], like any other vocation, was subservient to politics and subject to arbitrary rules. Always, the joy of teaching was marred by diversions and considerations forced on us by the regime—how well could one teach when the main concern […]was how to excise the word wine from a Hemingway story, when they decided not to teach Brontë because she appeared to condone adultery?