Reading Lolita in Tehran

by Azar Nafisi

“Whoever fights monsters,” Nietzsche had said, “should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”

She said, Of course, these books aren’t so fashionable these days. Everyone has gone postmodern. They can’t even read the text in the original—they’re so dependent on some pseudo-philosopher to tell them what it says.