Azar Nafisi, PhD

Dr. Azar Nafisi, Author, Activist & Educator

Azar Nafisi, author of the New York Times bestselling autobiographical novel Reading Lolita in Tehran has a life story riddled with outstanding challenges as well as inspiring victories in the face of immense adversities. Being born in Iran in 1956, much of her life was shaped by the Islamic Revolution in 1979. She earned a PhD in American Literature and English from the University of Oklahoma in the 1970s, and returned to her home country shortly thereafter, to teach English at the University of Tehran. In 1981, she was expelled from teaching due to her refusal to wear a veil. She did not resume teaching for six years. Eventually, she taught English at the Free Islamic University and Allameh Tabatabai, then, according to her website, conducted a lecture series on “culture and the important role of Western literature and culture in Iran after the Revolution in 1979." She returned to the United States in 1997. She is highly respected for her work advocating for the women of Iran. Order on Amazon.

Dr. Nafisi became a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, in 1997. She brought her wealth of knowledge and experience to the students there, teaching courses in literature, culture, aesthetics, and “the relation between culture and politics” (Aspen Worlds, 2017). She has lectured and written extensively on literature, culture, politics, and the desperate need for women’s rights in Iran.

As a woman who has grown up in the United States, it is hard to conceptualize the full extent of the harsh realities of the women in nations like Iran. In an interview with BBC, Azar Nafisi described how the regime has affected women “What the regime does to women is even if they don’t kill us, when you stop a woman from being herself, stop her from speaking the way she wants, to or stop her from connecting, it’s a kind of murder. And so we’re fighting for our existence. We’re fighting our survival.” (BBC, 2026)

Although American women have not experienced such authoritarian severity, we have our own fights for women’s rights. We have lost our right to abortion following the overturn of Roe V Wade, and the challenge to regain our right to choose continues. The women of Iran have lost their right to choose as well, in November 2021, the Guardian Council ratified the “Youthful Population and Protection of the Family” law which has criminalized abortion access, but this same law also criminalized contraception, voluntary sterilization services, and related information (Guillaume, 2025). In 2024, the Law “to Support the Family by Promoting the culture of Chastity and Hijab” was approved by the Guardian Council. This law has been criticized by UN experts since it was a bill. A 2023 press release, warned that the law could amount to gender apartheid stating: “authorities appear to be governing through systemic discrimination with the intention of suppressing women and girls into total submission” (UN Experts, 2023)

The war that the government of Iran is waging against their girls is ongoing. Iranian women are losing rights to things that we have had for decades upon decades - things that no one should have to fight tooth and nail for. Interestingly, pre-1979 Irian women were not restricted to wearing a hijab, nor were divorce laws were as biased towards men as they are now. I find that it is important to remain steadfast in our efforts to know what is happening to women everywhere, to use our right to knowledge and remain informed on the situation in Iran as well as in our own country. Azar Nafisi has educated an immeasurable number of people about the horrors faced by women in Iran. Her advocacy has been immensely impactful. Coming from a nation where the right to an education is always sitting on the chopping block, her commitment to gaining knowledge and sharing her intelligence and experience is heroic.

Learn more at https://www.azarnafisi.com/

By Genevieve Pollock, through the generosity of the Mellon Foundation

Sources Cited

About. Azar Nafisi. (n.d.). https://www.azarnafisi.com/about-azar

Azar Nafisi. Aspen Words. (2017). https://www.aspenwords.org/people/azar-nafisi/

BBC. (2026). BBC Audio | The Interview | Azar Nafisi, author: Iranians are fighting for their freedom. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct7x7q

Experts, U. (2023). Iran’s proposed hijab law could amount to “gender apartheid”: Un experts | ohchr. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/09/irans-proposed-hijab-law-could-amount-gender-apartheid-un-experts

Guillaume. (2025, January 23). Factsheet · women and girls’ rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran - Impact Iran. Impact Iran - A Coalition United to Improve Human Rights in Iran. https://impactiran.org/2024/12/02/upr2025-women-and-girls-rights-in-the-islamic-republic-of-iran/