Colonial Legacies, Theocratic Authoritarianism, and Feminist Resistance in Reading Lolita in Tehran

Abstract

This paper examines Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran through a postcolonial feminist framework, focusing on the intersections of indirect colonial legacies, theocratic governance, and women’s intellectual responses in post-revolutionary Iran. It analyzes how the text represents gendered restrictions under the Islamic Republic while situating these conditions within broader historical and geopolitical influences. The paper explores Nafisi’s use of both Western literary works, such as Nabokov’s Lolita, and Persian narratives, including the tales of Scheherazade, to consider literature as a space for reflection, dialogue, and meaning-making. Rather than approaching the memoir as a critique of Islam as a belief system, this article emphasizes its attention to the state’s use of religious authority in regulating women’s lives. At the same time, it considers how global literary traditions shape the articulation of feminist concerns. Overall, this paper presents Reading Lolita in Tehran as a text that reveals the complexities of cultural influence, literary engagement, and women’s agency within an authoritarian context.