Things I've Been Silent About: Memories of a Prodigal Daughter

by Azar Nafisi

In Azar Nafisi's personal story of growing up in Iran, she shares her memories of a life lived in thrall to a powerful and complex mother, against the background of a country's political revolution. Nafisi's intelligent and complicated mother, disappointed in her dreams of leading an important and romantic life, created mesmerising fictions about herself, her family, and her past. But her daughter soon learned that these narratives of triumph hid as much as they revealed. When her father began to see other women, young Azar began to keep his secrets from her mother. Nafisi's complicity in these childhood dramas ultimately led her to resist remaining silent about other personal - as well as political, cultural, and social - injustices. "Things I've Been Silent About" is also a powerful historical picture of a family that spans the many periods of change leading up to the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79. This unforgettable portrait of a woman, a family, and a troubled homeland is a new triumph from a modern master of the memoir.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Iran, Middle East, Biography, Biography Memoir, History

368 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 2008

About the author

Azar Nafisi (Persian: آذر نفیسی) is an Iranian American writer and scholar of English literature whose work explores the political and imaginative power of books. Born in Tehran, she grew up in a family deeply engaged in public life. Her father served as mayor of the city in the early 1960s, while her mother was among the first women elected to the National Consultative Assembly. As a teenager, she left Iran to study in England and later Switzerland, eventually completing her university education in the United States. She earned a doctorate in English and American literature from the University of Oklahoma before returning to Iran shortly before the 1979 Revolution.
Nafisi began teaching at the University of Tehran, but her refusal to comply with mandatory veiling laws led to her expulsion in 1981. After a period of political and cultural uncertainty, she resumed teaching at Allameh Tabataba’i University. Her relationship with the institution remained fraught, and by the mid 1990s she had distanced herself from formal academic life. From 1995 to 1997, she held weekly literary discussions in her home for a group of female students, creating an intimate space where they read and interpreted novels considered unwelcome by the authorities. These meetings became the foundation for her most influential book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, a memoir that intertwines literature, personal reflection, and the lived realities of women in post-revolutionary Iran.
Nafisi moved to the United States in 1997 and later became a citizen. Her subsequent work continued to explore the role of books in shaping identity, imagination, and civic life. She has written widely for major newspapers and literary outlets and has held academic and public-intellectual roles at Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and Oxford. Her books include Things I’ve Been Silent About, The Republic of Imagination, That Other World: Nabokov and the Puzzle of Exile, and Read Dangerously, each extending her conviction that literature offers a unique form of moral and imaginative resistance.
Her writing has received significant critical acclaim, earning awards for both literary merit and intellectual courage. In 2024, Reading Lolita in Tehran was adapted for film with Golshifteh Farahani portraying Nafisi. Throughout her career, she has spoken and written about the intersections of culture, authoritarianism, and personal freedom, insisting on the enduring relevance of literature in societies confronting political pressure. Her work continues to spark debate, admiration, and reflection across a wide international readership.

Reviews

[Heba]

هذه السيرة العائلية للكاتبة الإيرانية " آذار نفيسي " تغص بالمرارة القاسية..والآمال المُحبطة ، فالحكايات جاءت مجدولة من خيوط الألم والخسارة....
الحقيقة لا تبعث على الإرتياح ، من المؤكد لا تبعث على الإرتياح بقدر ما يفعله الكذب أو النسيان...

[Nahid Rachlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this better than Reading Lolita. It's more personal and more accurate.

[Terence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone hoping to get an inside look at Iran under the Shah and in the immediate aftermath of the revolution or a blow-by-blow account of political survival under dictatorships will be sorely disappointed when they read Nafisi's final sentence and close this book. This is not that book. To be honest, it's not even a particularly Iranian or even Muslim book. What it is, is the intensely personal account of a woman and her relationship to her parents; how it disastrously warped and positively shaped her life. The secret to books like this is in the reader - its success depends upon how interesting they find the subject.

From my rating, it should be obvious that I find Azar Nafisi a fascinating person. She is the daughter of an elite Iranian family (her father was mayor of Tehran in the '60s and her mother, a member of Parliament for a brief time), and she was raised in a very secularized, indeed Westernized, house where Islam was a tradition rather than a deeply felt religious impulse. Early on her father inculcated a deep love of literature in her. As Nafisi writes, "he gave me literature not as a pastime but as a way of perceiving and interpreting the world" (p. 240). Also from a very early age, Nafisi became her father's ally in the troubled marriage he shared with her mother. Both were people whose aspirations had been betrayed and blocked most of their lives, and they seemed helpless to not take out their frustrations on each other and their families. Nafisi's mother was the worse off. She had lived a Cinderella life with a real "wicked stepmother" and an idealized "Prince Charming," whose death soon after marriage appeared to her to have crushed any hopes she entertained for a happy life. Nafisi often mentions that her mother feared pleasure and was unable to enjoy herself. The author's father's problems were less complex, perhaps, but no less destructive to a normal life. In the author's estimation, her father was forever looking for a perfect, loving relationship but didn't have the strength to leave his wife and find it. Nafisi quotes extensively from his diaries, where he has some penetrating insights into his wife but can't perceive the beam in his own eye.

Nafisi is unsparing in her examination of mother, father and herself, and often acknowledges how her life was impacted by her parents' lies and the lies she told herself. What ultimately "saves" her was the intellectual faculties her father encouraged - wide-ranging curiousity and a talent for self-examination. It didn't always save her from some grievous mistakes and she only fully learned her lessons too late for complete reconciliation with either parent but I believe she has managed to avoid becoming her mother toward her own children and husband.

I wrote earlier that this wasn't a "Muslim" book but that's an unfair simplification. Much of what happened (positive and negative) in Nafisi's life can be linked to Iranian and Islamic culture. She contends that many of her mother's fears and delusions stemmed from living in a culture the repressed the personalities of half its population based on 3,000-year-old religious traditions. When I claim this isn't a "Muslim" book it's because Nafisi is making more universal claims than "Islam is backward" or something equally ridiculous. Her first introduction to literature was to the Persian classics, and she has a profound love and understanding of her nation's literature as well as Islam's. It's married, though, to the Enlightenment ideal of intellectual "adventure." She celebrates the wealth there is to admire in Islam but she's firmly opposed to the repression and hypocrisy of many of its clerics as much as she opposed the same ethos under the Shah, or the same in any society claiming to be civilized.

There is some information on contemporaneous events - Nafisi's involvement in student associations in the States during the '70s, when she was getting her degree; her father's imprisonment under the Shah; or the imprisonment and murder of several family members - but this is decidedly of secondary importance except as it impacts her relations with mom and dad. A position which snarks off some critics to a laughable degree. I often check out reviews after reading an interesting and/or difficult book because I find they help organize and articulate my own reactions to a book (even if I disagree). In that spirit, I came across this hysterical overreaction to Nafisi (in this case, to her first book, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books):

That article is part of a larger set of reflections on the nature and function of the US Empire - a chimerical construct much in need of theorization since the groundbreaking work of Negri and Hardt.... In my "Native Informer" essay, the selection of RLT as a case in point is rather secondary to my primary concern at typologizing the formation of the category of "the Native Informers" or "Comprador Intellectuals" at the service of furthering the cause of this empire. Hamid Dabashi, interview in Z Magazine

When I read that my BS alarm blew a fuse. Dabashi appears to have willfully missed the entire point of Nafisi's first book (and he'll probably miss this one's as well). Not caring to engage Nafisi as an individual but as an extension of the "US Empire" that haunts his own ideology.

A final thought: While I can't really recommend Qanta Ahmed's In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom, it would be instructive to read it in tandem with Things I've Been Silent About.

Both this book and Reading Lolita are highly recommended. Nafisi is an articulate writer and an interesting person well worth becoming acquainted with.

[فهد الفهد · Rating 3 out of 5]

أشياء كنت ساكتة عنها

مدفوعاً بذكرى (أن تقرأ لوليتا في طهران) كتاب نفيسي السابق الجميل، قرأت هذا الكتاب الذي يفترض به أن يكون سيرة سابقة لعودة نفيسي من أمريكا ومعاناتها مع نظام الملالي، هذه سيرة نفيسي الطفلة والشابة، ذكريات الأم والأب، ذكريات الزواج الأول والثاني، ذكريات المدرسة ومجتمع ما قبل الثورة، ولكن كل هذا البوح والذي يتمدد على ما يزيد على 400 صفحة، ليس له مذاق (أن تقرأ لوليتا في طهران)، ليس له خفتها، تركز نفيسي على والدتها – التي ستثير غيظ أي قارئ -، ووالدها محافظ طهران السابق والذي عانى كثيراً من نظام الشاه، وسجن وحقق معه على خلفية اتهامات فساد برئ منها لاحقاً، تتحدث عن زواجها الأول والذي انهار سريعاً، وتتحدث عن زواجها الثاني، وعن الثورة والحرب العراقية، ولكن كل هذا لا يأتي بذات القلم والنفس الذي كتبت به سيرتها الأولى، ربما لأن تلك السيرة كانت مخلوطة بالكتب بشكل جعلها فاتنة.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Nafisi's best known book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, when it was first published in 2003. While I appreciated the work, it did not leave me with a desire to read anything else by Nafisi. I admired the writing, but I had conceived a dislike for the writer. I cannot easily explain why. However, it seemed to me that there was something unapproachable about Nafisi - an intellectual arrogance, maybe - which made me unable to warm to her.

A few weeks ago I became involved in a discussion about Iran in a GR group which encouraged me to put aside my negative reaction to Nafisi and read this book. Reading it hasn't made me like Nafisi much better. However, it has given an opportunity to analyse why I had that reaction. It has also given me an opportunity to develop some empathy for Nafisi.

There are a number of things that I really like about this book. First, there's its style. Nafisi's prose is beautiful: elegant, lucid, intelligent. She weaves Persian and western literary allusions into her narrative in a way which illuminates and adds to the text. Next, there's the evocation of a past Iran, with every day events and family history woven into the fabric of social and political history. In addition, there‘s Nafisi’s ability to re-create in her writing a child's perspective and reactions to the events going on around her. There's also - I think - a genuine attempt to be honest and to write an account of her life which goes against the cultural imperative to keep family secrets within the family.

What I like less about the book is Nafisi herself: her elusiveness, her brittleness, her remoteness. To me she comes across as rigid, uncompromising and possibly as someone who would deal with opposition – or more particularly with disappointment or the thwarting of her will – in a manner just as unsatisfactory as her mother’s. In addition, Nafisi makes a point of saying that this work is about truth-telling. Although I believe that she has written with honesty, there are still some things which I don't think are well-explained. One of them is Nafisi's decision to marry the first time. Escaping home makes sense, but given that Nafisi's family supported her desire for further education, it's not clear why she didn't choose to study abroad without getting married first.

I read lots of books about Iran. It's a country and a culture that I love and with which I am familiar. Eight years after reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, I'm glad to have finally acquired a little more understanding of Nafisi and the family dynamics which have influenced her. I also understand what caused my initial negative reaction to her writing. With that understanding, I won't be reluctant to read what she writes in the future.

A post-script: I've noticed something odd. Nafisi's GR biography page states that she was born in 1955. However, given that she was in high school at the time her father was imprisoned in 1963 and was married for the first time when she was in her late teens and her father was still in prison three years later, a 1955 birthdate seems somewhat unlikely.

[Ebtihal Salman · Rating 5 out of 5]

هذا الكتاب يجعلني اشعر بتقدير خاص للسير الذاتية النسوية، ويذكرني مباشرة بتلك السيرة الجميلة التي قرأتها لليف أولمن (أتغير) فأهميتها بالنسبة لي تكمن في تلك الافكار والمشاعر والمواقف الخاصة بالمرأة، أهميتها تأتي في أن تقول بأن أحدا خاض كل هذا، وأنه مَر.

سيرة آذر نفيسي هي سيرة علاقتها الشائكة بأمها، منذ طفولتها والى ما بعد هجرتها ووفاة أمها. وصحيح أنها وضعت مجهودا خطيرا في رسم خلفية تاريخية للتحولات السياسية في ايران: صعود البهلويين، المخططات الاصلاحية، الانقلابات والاضطرابات، ثم الثورة الاسلامية والحرب، والتي احاطت بعائلتها وأثرت في حياتها (والدها كان محافظ طهران وأمها عضوة في البرلمان ابان حكم الشاه) لكنك على الارجح يمكن ان تستعين بكتب التاريخ وبشكل اكثر كفاءة من نفيسي المتحيزة بشكل صارخ (اووبس.. نسيت ان تقول شيئا عن قتل الشاه للمتظاهرين الموشكين على الاطاحة بعرشه، رغم انها تذكرت كل شيء عن القتل الذي جرى بعد الاطاحة بحكمه).
لكن اذا وضعنا البعد السياسي والتاريخي للكتاب جانبا فإن غناه حقا هو في سرد هذه العلاقات العائلية المرتبكة والشائكة، شخصية والدها المؤثرة الذي زرع في أبناءه صلات عميقة بوطنهم وثقافته الفارسية من عمق قصص الشاهنامة، وبذر تلك الجذور التي بقيت تمدّ نفيسي بالرغبة في تأمل الواقع من خلال التراث والمنتج الأدبي للمجتمع، وتلك الرحلة الطويلة التي خاضتها نفيسي في علاقتها مع والدتها كالسباحة في عكس مجرى التيار حتى وصولها الى مرحلة من النضج تسمح لها بالتأمل ومحاولة الفهم. تكتب عن الحبال التي بقيت تشد افراد عائلة معا، حتى عندما كان الحب شحيحا والرغبة في السلطة في أوجها.

استمتعت جدا بقدرة نفيسي على سرد هذا الكم من الذكريات ووضعها في قالب درامي.

[Ahmed Almawali · Rating 4 out of 5]

قليلةٌ هي الكتبُ التي نحزنُ على انتهائها، وهذا الكتاب من بين الكتبِ التي حزنتُ على أنها انتهت. هذا الجمالُ كان يستحق ترجمةً تحسنُ إظهارَ حُسنِ مخزونه الثر ولكن الترجمةَ جاءت أقل من المأمول ومع ذلك فالجمالُ السرديُّ يغطي عن بعضِ العيوبِ، لننظرَ مثلا كلمةَ (خاصتي) ومشتقاتها فيكادُ لا تخلو بضعُ صفحاتٍ منها.
هي مذكراتٌ لأبيها وأمها وايران وتحولاتِها لما يقارب قرنا من الزمنِ أكثرَ من كونها لها، خناقاتُ أبيها وأمها وما رافقه من طموحٍ سياسي سرعان ما تلاشى بسبب السجنِ ثم الثورة، هذه الخناقات جعلت منها آذر محورا رئيسا في مذكراتِها تعود فيه إلى الماضي إلى أبويهما إلى بداية القرن العشرين، وتتجه كذلك منهما إلى المستقبلِ في شبه تدرج، نلحظ هنا أنه لا نظام الشاه ولا بعده حقق طموحاتِ آذر فعلى الرغمِ من تناقضاتهما إلا أنها لم تجد سماءَ الحريةِ التي تنشدها. على أن أجملَ ما في هذه المذكراتِ هي نقلُ صورةِ حياة إيران حسبَ ما عايشته صاحبةُ المذكرات.

[ريم الصالح · Rating 4 out of 5]

ذكريات، هي تماماً ذكريات.
تسترجع آذر نفيسي هنا ذاكرةً طويلة مشحونة بجفاء الأم وحزن الأب،
مشحونة بوطن ينسل من اليد دون أن تقدر على فعل شيء..
في هذا الكتاب تستعيد آذر حالتها المهتاجة تجاه سيطرة أمها، منذ سن الرابعة
منذ أن مُنِعت من تغيير مكان سريرها..

هذا الكتاب يدخلك إلى قلب آذر نفيسي، وأنت لن تشعر بالاندفاع الروحي عند أيّ قلب تدخله طبعاً.
أعني أن الفضول وحده هنا لا يكفي!
إذا كنت تحب آذر فحتماً سيكون ذلك كفيلاً بإبقاء هذا الكتاب بين يديك إلى نهاية الرحلة.

أعتقد أن هذا الكتاب مهم عبر خلقه -لقارئ الأدب الفارسي- صوراً ولمحات عميقة حول التحولات الهائلة التي مرّت بها الثقافة الفارسية..
منذ الزرادشتية وعهد القاجار مروراً بحكم العرب وحكم الشاه إلى قيام الثورة الإسلامية للخميني.

لمن لم يقرأ لآذر نفيسي مسبقاً،
أنصحه بكتابها "أن تقرأ لوليتا في طهران"
قبل الشروع في الذكريات.

[Noor · Rating 1 out of 5]

المذكِّراتُ كتبٌ لها حدودُها، فلا ينبغي ـ بحجّةِ عرضِ الحقائق ـ أن نُسَفِّهَ الغيرَ، ولا سيّما إن لم يكن حيّاً.
تجاوزُ خطِّ الحريّةِ أرعبني، لا فيما يخصّ الموقفَ من الدين فحسب، بل في الحقّ في إطلاع العامّة على تفاصيل العوائل والأُسَر؛ فهناك تعبيرٌ ضروريٌّ الالتزامِ به، وهو أنَّ المجالسَ أماناتٌ، وبالتالي لا يمكن عرضُ حياةِ الآخرين بهذه الصورة المُخزية.
ويا ليت الكاتبةَ ظلّت ساكتة؛ أمّا أن تُقيِّمَ كلَّ شيءٍ بمنطقٍ خاطئ، حتى نصلَ إلى مرحلةٍ نُنسبُ فيها الشعوبَ إلى الإدارةِ السياسيّةِ لكلّ شعب، لا العكس، ليُصبحَ الفردُ رديفاً للكلّ، ويغدو التعميمُ هو المبدأَ القائم؛ فتلك هي الطامّةُ الكبرى.
لذا فإن آذر نفيسي لم تُمثل وأسرتُها الحريّةَ ولا الإنصاف، وبالفعل أُشفِقُ على الحريّة من هذه الادّعاءاتِ الواهية.

[Irwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading a memoir, at worst, satisfies us the way gossip shows do. We peep into other people’s life and see things similar or different from ours. We take pleasures from mistakes and failures that others do - we learn the lessons or just secretly be thankful that it doesn’t happen to us.

At best, reading a memoir is like being a confidant to a close friend. She opens up her life, her intricate relationship with her parents, and her experience as an individual citizen in the political, religious context of her country. And this book is the second one for me.

If I ever become a writer, I guess what she is doing with this book is the scariest thing for me. I would imagine it is not a simple thing for her either. The personal part of the book is mainly about her parents’ relationship — a father desiring to be loved and approved and a dominant mother who denied it — and how the children are affected by the dramas it created. This is summed up beautifully in the first paragraph of the prologue.

”Most men cheat on their wives to have mistresses. My father cheated on my mother to have a happy family life. .... He later claimed that most of his relations with these other women were not sexual, that what he yearned for was the feeling they gave him of warmth and approval. Approval! My parents taught me how deadly that desire could be.”

That paragraph hooked me. Nafisi’s fluent writing shows clearly how she deals with the problems. I suspect that writer’s sensibilities of hers somehow help her as well. She described the people in her life the way novelists would probe their characters.

Her literary references among details of the story being told is natural and even poetics. One of my favorites is when she talks about a birth certificate of the wife of her cousin. They are devout muslims, as opposed to her secular lifestyle, who feel betrayed by the atrocities entailing the Islamic revolution. They joined the Mojahedeen organization and thus become fugitives. “Objects have tears in them”, she referred to Virgil’s Aeneas. The birth certificate (shown in picture) shows her cousin’s wife photo with her dark scarf and no smile, fake name and personal data. The couple has long gone in their escape from the Islamic regime. She wonders how she ended up with this birth certificate alongside piles of diaries and notes: “what tears are hidden in its pages?”

This is probably an example how knowledge of literature can enrich one’s life: rich ways to withdraw wisdoms and beautiful renditions of our seemingly mundane lives. This is my main attraction to this book.

Another interesting aspect is the personal accounts of the historical moments of her country, Iran. How the atrocities of the Islamic regime encourage some of its citizens to relive the pre-islamic, zoroastrian past to withdraw identity and romanticism as a way to disconnect themselves with the present. She presented this point through literature: Shahnameh (Books of Kings). Interestingly, this is also the way she disconnects or escapes from the pains inflicted by the dysfunctional relationship of her parents. Her father told her stories when she was upset by the verbal abuse of her dominant mothers.

As a woman she also experiences the intrusiveness of the regime in the personal space, i.e.: telling women what and what not to wear. She once stopped by a young man shouting “Hey, hejabeto dorost kan!” (hey, adjust your veil!). The simple shouting soon turned ugly when ignored, the young man abused her verbally “We don’t want sluts in this country. Haven’t you heard, there has been a revolution!”.

I am secretly thankful that I was not in her shoes, but I get the message that we should be aware of this kind of atrocities from its earliest symptoms, before it’s too late.

In conclusion, I’d like to say that this is a very well written memoir, balanced in its elements and heartwarmingly depicting a life in the context of a family as well as a country. Oh, how similar the two contexts can sometimes be!

[CJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book took me forever to finish. I'm not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it. I remember the Iranian revolution. I was in junior high and high school when the Americans were taken hostage in the embassy and I clearly remember the events as they were happening. I guess I wanted an idea of what it was like from someone who was actually there.

Nafisi is the pampered daughter of two people who were both well connected. Her father was an advisor to the Shah and her mother eventually became part of the political machine. This book is the story of their lives, filtered through Nafisi's eyes.

The book could have been fascinating. The impression that it left me with was that of a spoiled princess who loved her father more than she loved her mother and did what she could to break free of them. I didn't get a sense of what happened to regular Iranian citizens during the time of the revolution, because Nafisi isn't one of them.

This book is not a broad description of what life in Iran was like before and during the revolution. It is one small slice of one family.

[Fatima Zahraa · Rating 4 out of 5]

الثلاثاء ١٧ نوفمبر ٢٠٢٠

-تمّت-

* اقتباس : "كُنّا فعلا في أمسّ الحاجة إلى ثورة ثقافيّة-ليست تلك الثّورة المزيّفة التي فرضها علينا النظام- بل ثورة ثقافيّة حقيقيّة"

يبدُو أنّ آذار نفيسي كانت ساكتة عن "أشياء" كثيرة وهيَ تمتلِك من الشّجاعة ما يجعلها تُفصِحُ عن هذه "الأشياء" في شكلِ كتابِ سيرة ذاتية تقدّمهُ لنا وتجعلنا في حيرةٍ من أمرنا هل نتعاطفُ معها أو نختلف معها في مواقفها .

أشياء كانت ساكتة عنها "نفيسي" وما أكثر هذه الأشياء : علاقتها بوالديها ، عائلتها ،غراميات والدها، مغامرات والدتها ، علاقتها بزوجها الأول ، مسارها الدّراسي، زواجها الثاني ، الثورة ، الجمهورية الإسلامية ... أحداث كثيرة تذكرها الكاتبة في سيرة ذاتية ممتعة مع ذكر الكثير من التفاصيل التي لن تملّ منها بقدر ما ستشدّك لتعرف المزيد .
( كموقف شخصيّ وجدتني أشفقُ على والدة نفيسي كثيرا و أحببتها برغم ما قد ذكرته الكاتبة عنها ،وعند ذكرها لتفاصيل بقائها وحيدة في منزلها إلى وصف تفاصيل وفاتها كان قلبي ينقبضُ كما لو أنها شخصا أعرفه .. ).
في النّهاية أجدُ نفسي حائرة بين موقفين : هل أنا معجبة بقوة شخصِيّة نفيسي و إعجابي بما وصلت إليه بالرّغم مما عاشته -كما ذكرت هي - مع عائلتها و ماعانته في بلادها مع الثّورة ، أو أنني طبعا مختلفة معها في ما يخُصّ موقفها من الدّين .
❤

[Denisa Arsene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mi-a placut foarte mult aceasta carte in care autoarea ne prezinta un Iran aflat in plina schimbare. Problemele cu care se confrunta familia ei, solutiile, intrigile si inscenarile sunt ale unei intregi natiuni. Ne putem face o imagine despre ceea ce a insemnat, pentru acei oameni, sa traiasca vremuri de restriste istorica.

[Fay · Rating 5 out of 5]

خلصت الكتاب بدموع، كانت رحلة ممتعة ومؤلمة بنفس الوقت، آذر هي الي دخلتني للأدب الفارسي، قرأت لها "أن تقرأ لوليتا في طهران" من قبل ومن بعدها قررت أكمل باقي أعمالها.

[Marina Nemat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Things I’ve Been Silent About is the second memoir of Azar Nafisi, the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, which became an international bestseller in 2003. This new book is a collection of memories of Nafisi’s growing up in Tehran as a privileged young girl in an elite family with a complicated, overwhelming mother, who didn’t give her children any personal space, and a charming but sad father, who filled Nafisi’s childhood with stories from the Shahnameh (The Persian Book of Kings) and whose desperate search for a happy family life never seemed to bear fruit. Nafisi is tangled in the web of her dysfunctional family, trying to see herself as the person she truly is and not as her mother and father want her to be, and, eventually, she escapes her troubled family life and gets into a marriage that ends in divorce.
The backdrop to this story is Iran, which is slowly moving toward the devastating Islamic revolution of 1979 that that even though succeeds in overthrowing the autocratic Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, eventually, instead of delivering its promises of democracy, results in the loss of even the basic personal freedoms of Iranian citizens.

Nafisi’s mother, whose first husband—the son of a prime minister—dies a couple of years after their marriage, never seems to be able to move on and love her second husband—Nafisi’s father—and lives in a fictional world she has created, which she regularly reinvents depending on circumstances. By doing so, she destroys her relationship with all of the members of her family and drives them further and further away from her.
Nafisi is sent abroad when she is about 12 or 13 years old and spends years in England, Switzerland, and the United States, visiting her family in Iran in between her studies, returning to the country shortly after the success of the Islamic revolution in 1979. In about 1961, Nafisi’s father becomes the mayor of Tehran, and later her mother is elected as one of the first female members of the Iranian parliament. But her father is arrested in 1963—when he is still the mayor—and remains in prison, without trial, for four years on alleged charges of corruption. However, the truth is that he is the victim of a conspiracy by his political rivals, who have accused him of sympathizing with Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters.
Nafisi tells her family story with a sure, steady hand; for me (I was born and raised in Iran), Things I’ve been Silent About is a vivid collection of familiar images and emotions, but for the Western reader, it would be an interesting journey through Iran’s history from mid 1900s to a few years after the success of Islamic revolution of 1979, intertwined with family tension and drama.
When reading a memoir that is set against a serious and important historical background, I usually create a “time line,” marking the date and place of every notable event in the book. This helps me remember things and put them into perspective. However, I found creating the “time line” of Things I’ve Been Silent About quite challenging, if not impossible. Even though this book is about Ms. Nafisi’s life, I couldn’t find her date of birth in the book, not even on the copyright page. It is important to know the age of the heroine of a memoir: how old is she when she moves away from home to a distant and strange country, falls in love for the first time, or marries? At the end, I had to Google Ms. Nafisi and found that only Wikipedia had her date of birth, which it stated at 1955. However, after spending a long time studying the book’s photos and events, I realized that this was basically impossible: Ms. Nafisi must have been born in 1948 or 49 – so I hope that she would clarify this.
Many Iranians, including myself, couldn’t truly relate to Reading Lolita in Tehran, because we had not read most of the novels that Ms. Nafisi had discussed and analyzed in it. This was the main downside of Reading Lolita in Tehran for me, and I was surprised when all the members of my book club, who are all very well-read Canadian-born women, felt the same way – but I’m glad to report that in Things I’ve Been Silent About, Ms. Nafisi speaks mainly of family relations and Persian literature and keeps referrals to Western novels to a minimal. In a book about Iran, which has a very rich history and culture, it might be to the advantage of the reader if the author remains – as much as it is humanly and circumstantially possible – within the realm she is trying to describe.

It is very difficult to fairly critique a memoir or a person’s memories of certain events and especially of family life, as how we see the world depends largely on our perspective. It is a fact that Ms. Nafisi’s privileged social status naturally affects the images she creates in her works, but this in no way diminishes their value. Ms. Nafisi’s long periods of absence from Iran create fragments in the book that come together to paint a complex mosaic that is both Eastern and Western. Ms. Nafisi is an Iranian English professor, and it can be argued that it is her job to discuss Lolita, Wuthering Heights, Anna Karenina, etc. and to draw parallels between them and the world. Regardless of whether from the East or the West, both good fiction and narrative non-fiction have carried the human experience through hundreds of years of war, revolution, and turmoil, making history real and tangible, and even if they do not exactly correspond with our personal view of the world, they deserve our respect and attention.
Things I’ve Been Silent About is a great read, but reading 2 or 3 books on Iran would not give an individual who has never lived in that country a complete understanding of its complexities and paradoxes. Iran is a huge puzzle, and each book written on it is merely a small part of the whole image. (THIS REVIEW WAS PUBLISHED IN THE GLOBE AND MAIL)

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dopo "Leggere Lolita a Teheran" ritorno ad assaporare, a vivere il mondo di Azar Nafisi. Il mondo raccontato dalla Nafisi è un mondo affascinante per certi versi, in quanto ci permette di conoscere meglio Teheran, la sua terra natìa, ma è allo stesso tempo un mondo difficile e particolare in quanto vi sono leggi e divieti incomprensibili e deleteri per una donna.
"Le cose che non ho detto" è un viaggio che racconta cosa significa essere donna a Teheran dove tutti i tuoi diritti sono violati. E' una autobiografia alla quale si intreccia la storia di 40 anni di lotta, la guerra tra Iran e Iraq sino all'ayatollah Khomeini che ha reso difficile la vita alle donne e a tutti gli altri abitanti.
Ad ogni pagina, capitolo ci innamoriamo di Azar Nafisi, dei negozi nei quali era solita andare, dei bazar che ama frequentare, respiriamo i sapori, i profumi, gli odori di una terra lontanissima da noi per cultura, tradizioni, usi, ecc.
La Nafisi rimpiange la città delle feste, la città in cui era possibile circolare senza velo e senza guardiani, "la città della libertà o dell'illusione di libertà che si respirava un tempo, per troppo breve tempo". In questa città che ora non sente più sua, Azar sa che vi è un luogo, una casa formata dalle storie che il padre gli raccontava, "una casa dove posso conservare la memoria e resistere alla tirrania degli uomini e del tempo".

[Marwa Abdullah · Rating 4 out of 5]

آذر نفيسي مرة أخرى..
تأخرت كثيرا في إكمال هذه المذكرات، ربما لأنني قرأت عن إيران حد التخمة..
-لا أعرف-..
كل ما أعرفه أن هذه السيرة لا تشبه غيرها.. لم تركز كل التركيز على الثورة الإسلامية وما تبعها من تغيرات جذرية في المجتمع الإيراني.. إنما كانت تقف وقفات تطول وتقصر على مجمل تاريخ إيران.
ملامح البلد قبل الثورة، في نهايات حكم الشاه، أثناء التحركات السرية داخل وخارج البلد، حين عودة الخميني من منفاه، تسلمه السلطة.. المجتمع الذي بدأ يتحول تدريجيا من مجتمع منفتح إلى مجتمع يفرض الدين بالسوط، ويكبل المرأة، يمنع الكتب الغربية، يمنع الموسيقى، يقدس رجال الدين أيما تقديس..

جاءت هذه المذكرات كشاهد على التحول الكامل لإيران..
وتدعمها رواية نفيسي '' أن تقرأ لوليتا في طهران '' ، أعتقد أن قراءة الرواية لا يغني عن المذكرات والعكس صحيح.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book isn't about Iranian politics. It's about an Iranian daughter and her family. This isn't a bad thing. Nafisi is a fasinating woman, and this book, written in chronological sequence, is in many ways a mediation on family which makes it strangely compelling. It is as if you are watching Nafisi walk back thorough her memories.

Yet despite its very personal feel, the book also is a good way to show the differences and similarities of culture. Nafisi family is warped but in much the same way that many American families are warped. Showing that while culture might affect us differently, some things are human, not cultural.

Of course, some things are cultural, like when Nafisi is forced to veil when she goes to work. And this is important too, because people are amazingly alike while being amazingly different.

[Tamila · Rating 4 out of 5]

من از نوشته های آذر نفیسی خیلی لذت میبرم. شیوه روایت کردنش را دوست دارم. کاملا مشخصه که با کتابهایی که خوانده زندگی میکنه. روایت‌های شخصی اش هم با شخصیتهای کتابها گره خورده. هر کتاب نفیسی را که تمام میکنم میگم “باید بیشتر از ناباکف بدونم”
این کتاب ناگفته های شخصی نفیسی بود. بی پرده بودنش را دوست داشتم. اینکه نخواست زیر سایه بزرگی نام خانواده اش بمونه و بی پرده از مشکلات درونی خانواده اش گفت. این کتاب من را یاد گفته های لیلی گلستان انداخت.

[Golriz Nafisi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is my cousin.
at first i thought im only interested in this book because it reveals a past that no one in my family cares to speak about-'we dont air our dirty laundry in public'- but then after two chapters i began to see that there is some sort of magic in her way of telling the stories...

[Yaqeen]

لم يعجبني ذمها للثورة في إيران...
اما من ناحية اللغة والسرد لا بأس بها .

[ليلى المطوع · Rating 3 out of 5]

عند قراءتك لهذه السيرة عليك ان تجهز نفسك لموجه كبيرة من الملل والحشو والمشاكل العائلية وعلاقة الفتاة المسكينة بأمها المتسلطة، وهذه الفتاة لم تستطع تجاوز محنتها مع والدتها رغم انها اصبحت تمتلك عائلة رائعة ومنصب لابأس به ، ورغم ان والدتها توفت منذ مايزيد عن 10 سنوات الا انها مازالت متحاملة عليها وفي نهاية الكتاب قررت ان تضع لها شكرا ، طيب والقارئ المسكين، المنكد عليه


اغفر لها من اجل بعض المعلومات التي دستها عن الثورة والادباء .كنت اتمنى ان تتحدث عن هذه التفاصيل للقارئ المتشوق لمعرفة ماذا حدث لايران

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nafisi sets aside the Persian taboo on revealing her family's realities to the world. The characters she presents are successful, socially engaged people with maddening obsessive-compulsive urges. Their lives are like journal entries full of self-contradicting edits. The whole country is editing itself, passionately erasing and redrafting. Maybe the best thing in the story is the family's engagement with the classical literature of Iran, which offers a backdrop of irreverent playfulness, passion for beauty, and love that won't be bound by rules.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bello, bello! Molto contenta di aver consociuto la storia di questa donna e del suo paese. Non vedo l'ora di leggere "Leggere Lolita a Teheran" ❤

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review soon.

[Jil · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was so personal as well as informative. How she articulates her experiences turning to persian and classical literature combining it with the evocation of a past Iran during a time of revolution and change creates a beautiful narrative style. Also the people in her life are described as characters in a novel. It helps to gain an access to a deeply personal reflection on woman’s choices, the events that shaped her life and how she found inspiration for a different kind of woman’s life in stories by persian writers such as Forough Farrokhzad, Shahrnoosh Parsipur and in stories by western writers such as Charlotte Bronte or Emily Dickinson. The way she integrates moments in twentieth-century Iranian history especially the islamic revolution and presents it through persian literature (through Shahnameh) shows the price a family pays for freedom in a country beset by political upheaval - and how it can also be a ‚constant resistance against the tyranny of man and of time‘.

A quote from this book that describes todays situation: This was about the freedom of choice. No regime, no figure of authority, had the right to tell a woman how to relate or not to relate to God.
This book is still relevant to this day and something I will start recommending to everyone.

[Krysia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had heard so many positives about Reading Lolita in Tehran (which I haven't read) and was curious about Iran, since I know so little about the history, so I decided to read this one. I was very disappointed; the novel is dense, yet repetitive, and very complaining. I have a feeling that her mother was quite typical of mothers in Iran, but I could be wrong. The mother and father were passive-aggressive types and enablers of each other. Their relationship with each other and the author didn't seem like great secrets to me that HAD to be revealed at all. Too bad the author didn't focus more on growing up Iranian, what it was like to be an Iranian student at an American university, etc. more instead of what she did focus on. Her mother was a tortured, complicated woman. Let's just leave it at that.

[Iris · Rating 1 out of 5]

First, I did not like Reading Lolita in Tehran. I thought the idea was ingenious, perhaps even brilliant, but was quickly strangled by a string of cliche's, which, unfortunately, followed the author throughout her memoir: Things I've Been Silent About.
One almost wishes she had remained silent. The book is self-indulgent (bordering on narcissistic), petulant, and disappointingly unoriginal. A good portion of the book focuses on her relationship with her mother only to end in the anti-climatic: "It was ironic that in the end I became what mother wanted me to be. [ ] a woman content with her family and her work."
No stereotypical views will be challenged by reading this book. If her ambition was to write the female/Iranian version of Speak, Memory, she has failed.

[Kefaya Al Mubarak · Rating 3 out of 5]

الكثير من محطات التأمل في هذا الكتاب.. فعلاً.. هناك من المواقف التي تمر علينا في الحياة يكون علينا من الصعب التعبير عنها في حينها.. ونضطر للسكوت.. لكن الوقت لابد أن يحين للتعبير والحديث عنها..

#أشياءٌ_كنت_ساكتةٌ_عنها للكاتبة #آذر_نفيسي .. هي مذكرات وجدت فيها تنفيسًا عن مكنونات النفس .. التي وجدت أخيرًا طريقها للتحرر ..

بين صفحات هذه المذكرات.. وجدت التاريخ والفلسفة والفكر وعلم النفس.. وجدت دور العائلة والأم -بالخصوص- .. الطموح والاجتهاد..

وجدت لحظات الطفولة وشقاوتها.. وجدت المراهقة ورعونتها.. وجدت الشباب وطاقته..

مع نهاية الكتاب.. تمنيت أن أكتب مذكراتي على غرار ما قامت بها آذر.. لأتحدث عن أشياء.. ساكتة عنها.. ترى.. هل أجد الشجاعة يومً لذلك!

[Duaa Issa · Rating 3 out of 5]

وقفت عند صفحة 314.. مليت من الحكي عن الشاه.. كنت حابة يكون في تفاصيل أكتر عن حياة آذر.