Nafisi's books have received critical acclaim from authors, publishing houses, and newspapers.
Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) Michiko Kakutani described
Reading Lolita in Tehran in
The New York Times Book Review as "resonant and deeply affecting… an eloquent brief on the transformative powers of fiction-- on the refuge from ideology that art can offer to those living under tyranny, and art's affirmative and subversive faith in the voice of the individual". Stephen Lyons for USA Today called the book "an inspiring account of an insatiable desire for intellectual freedom in Iran", and Publishers Weekly said of
Reading Lolita, "This book transcends categorization as memoir, literary criticism or social history, though it is superb as all three." Kirkus Reviews called
Reading Lolita, "A spirited tribute both to the classics of world literature and to resistance against oppression." Margaret Atwood, author of
The Handmaids Tale, reviewed Nafisi's book for the Literary Review of Canada, stating that, "
Reading Lolita in Tehran is both a fascinating account of how she arrived at this belief and a stunning dismissal of it. All readers should read it. As for writers, it reminds us, with great eloquence, that our words may travel farther and say more than we could ever guess when we wrote them." '''Things I've Been Silent About (2008)''' After reviewing ''Things I've Been Silent About, The New York Times'' Book Review called Nafisi "a gifted storyteller with a mastery of Western literature, Nafisi knows how to use the language both to settle scores and to seduce". Kirkus Reviews called the book "an immensely rewarding and beautifully written act of courage, by turns amusing, tender and obsessively dogged".
The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books (2014) Iranian French novelist Marjane Satrapi's review of
The Republic of Imagination, says, "We are all citizens of Azar Nafisi's Republic of Imagination. Without imagination, there are no dreams; without dreams, there is no art; without art, there is nothing. Her words are essential." Kirkus Reviews said the book is "a passionate argument for returning to key American novels to foster creativity and engagement… Literature writes Nafisi, is deliciously subversive because it fires the imagination and challenges the status quo… Her literary exegesis lightly moves through her experience as a student, teacher, friend, and new citizen. Touching on myriad examples, from L. Frank Baum to James Baldwin, her work is poignant and informative." Laura Miller of
Salon wrote that "No one writes better or more stirringly about the way books shape a reader's identity, and about the way that talking books with good friends becomes integral to how we understand the books, our friends and ourselves. She appeared on
Late Night with Seth Meyers, and
PBS NewsHour to promote the book.
That Other World: Nabokov and the Puzzle of Exile (2019) American literary critic Gary Saul Morson described
That Other World as "somewhere between a first-person encounter with literature and a critical study; this book reminds us of how meaningful literature can be".
Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times (2022) Publishers Weekly authored a starred review of Nafisi's forthcoming
Read Dangerously, calling it a "stunning look at the power of reading" and characterizing Nafisi's prose as "razor-sharp".
The Progressive Magazine printed that
Read Dangerously lives up to its audacious title, demonstrating the subversive and transformative power of literature. It should start many a book-based conversation among the living and the dead."
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Film (2024) The Atlantic said in a January 2025 review, that the "film and book avoid didacticism. And in doing so, they demonstrate exactly the point Nafisi explores with her students, which is the power of literature to stir empathy across seemingly unbridgeable divides."
Variety described the film as "a respectable, aptly rebellious and deeply feminine exercise."
Political influences In a 2003 article for
The Guardian,
Brian Whitaker criticized Nafisi for working for the public relations firm
Benador Associates which he argued promoted the neo-conservative ideas of
creative destruction and
total war. In 2004,
Christopher Hitchens wrote that Nafisi had dedicated
Reading Lolita in Tehran to
Paul Wolfowitz, the
United States Deputy Secretary of Defense under
George W. Bush and a principal architect of the
Bush Doctrine. Hitchens had stated that Nafisi was good friends with Wolfowitz and several other key figures in the Bush administration. Nafisi later responded to Hitchen's comments, neither confirming nor denying the claim. In a critical article in the academic journal
Comparative American Studies, titled
Reading Azar Nafisi in Tehran,
University of Tehran literature professor
Seyed Mohammad Marandi states that "Nafisi constantly confirms what orientalist representations have regularly claimed". He also claimed that she "has produced gross misrepresentations of Iranian society and Islam and that she uses quotes and references which are inaccurate, misleading, or even wholly invented." John Carlos Rowe, Professor of the Humanities at the
University of Southern California, states that: "Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (2003) is an excellent example of how neo-liberal rhetoric is now being deployed by neo-conservatives and the importance they have placed on cultural issues." He also states that Nafisi is "amenable.. to serving as a non-Western representative of a renewed defense of Western civilization and its liberal promise, regardless of its historical failures to realize those ends."
Hamid Dabashi: criticisms and counter-criticisms In 2006,
Columbia University professor
Hamid Dabashi, in an essay published in the Cairo-based, English-language paper
Al-Ahram (Dabashi's criticism of Nafisi became a cover story for an edition of the
Chronicle of Higher Education) compared
Reading Lolita in Tehran to "the most pestiferous
colonial projects of the British in India", and asserted that Nafisi functions as a "native informer and colonial agent" whose writing has cleared the way for an upcoming exercise of military intervention on the Middle East. He also labeled Nafisi as a "
comprador intellectual," a comparison to the "treasonous" Chinese employees of mainland British firms, who sold out their country for commercial gain and imperial grace. In an interview
Z magazine, he classed Nafisi with the U.S. soldier convicted of
mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib: "To me, there is no difference between
Lynndie England and Azar Nafisi." Finally, Dabashi stated that the book's cover image (which appears to be two veiled teenage women reading Lolita in Tehran) is in fact, in a reference to the
September 11 attacks, "Orientalised pedophilia" designed to appeal to "the most deranged Oriental fantasies of a nation already petrified out of its wits by a ferocious war waged against the phantasmagoric Arab/Muslim male potency that has just castrated the two totem poles of U.S. empire in New York." In the acknowledgements she makes in
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Nafisi writes of
Princeton University historian
Bernard Lewis as
"one who opened the door". Nafisi, who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, rejects such accusations as "guilt by association", noting that she has both "radical friends" and "conservative friends." Ali Banuazizi, the co-director of
Boston College’s Middle East studies program, stated that Dabashi's article was very "intemperate" and that it was "not worth the attention" it had received. Christopher Shea of
The Boston Globe argued that while Dabashi spent "several thousand words... eviscerating the book," his main point was not about the specific text but the book's black-and-white portrayal of Iran. Writing in
The New Republic,
Marty Peretz sharply criticized Dabashi, and rhetorically asked, "Over what kind of faculty does [Columbia University president]
Lee Bollinger preside?"
Robert Fulford sharply criticized Dabashi's comments in the
National Post, arguing that "Dabashi's frame of reference veers from
Joseph Stalin to
Edward Said. Like a Stalinist, he tries to convert culture into politics, the first step toward
totalitarianism. Like the late Edward Said, he brands every thought he dislikes as an example of imperialism, expressing the West's desire for hegemony over the oppressed (even when oil-rich) nations of the Third World." Fulford added that "While imitating the attitudes of Said, Dabashi deploys painful
clichés." stated that Dabashi's accusation that Nafisi is promoting a "'kaffeeklatsch' worldview... callously ignores the extreme social and political conditions that forced Nafisi underground." Papan Matin also argued that "Dabashi's attack is that whether Nafisi is a collaborator with the [United States]" was not relevant to the legitimate questions outlined in her book. ==Achievements and Awards==