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The Republic of Imagination
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  • Published: 28 January 2016
  • ISBN: 9781473537446
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 10 hr 9 min
  • Narrator: Mozhan Marno

The Republic of Imagination

Formats & editions
EBook
23 Oct 2014
Audiobook
28 Jan 2016
Audiobook
21 Oct 2014
Paperback
2 Nov 2015
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From the author of the bestselling memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran comes a powerful and passionate case for the vital role of fiction today.

From the author of the bestselling memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran comes a powerful and passionate case for the vital role of fiction today.

Ten years ago, Azar Nafisi electrified readers with her million-copy bestseller, Reading Lolita in Tehran, which told the story of how, against the backdrop of morality squads and executions, she taught The Great Gatsby and other classics to her eager students in Iran. In this exhilarating follow-up, Nafisi has written the book her fans have been waiting for: an impassioned, beguiling and utterly original tribute to the vital importance of fiction in a democratic society.

Taking her cue from a challenge thrown to her at a reading, she energetically responds to those who say fiction has nothing to teach us today. Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favourite novels, she invites us to join her as citizens of her 'Republic of Imagination', a country where the villains are conformity, and orthodoxy and the only passport to entry is a free mind and a willingness to dream.
  • Published: 28 January 2016
  • ISBN: 9781473537446
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 10 hr 9 min
  • Narrator: Mozhan Marno
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About the author

Azar Nafisi

Azar Nafisi is the critically acclaimed author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, a long-running #1 New York Times bestseller published in thirty-two languages, and Things I’ve Been Silent About, also a New York Times bestseller. A fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, she has taught at Oxford University and several universities in Tehran.
portrait photo of Azar Nafisi

Also by Azar Nafisi

Things I've Been Silent About
Reading Lolita In Tehran
See all

Praise for The Republic of Imagination

We are all citizens of Azar Nafisi’s The Republic of Imagination. Without imagination there are no dreams, without dreams there is no art, and without art there is nothing. Her words are essential.

Marjane Satrapi

A lovely book: sharp in observation and wholly readable.

Larry McMurtry

Resonant and deeply affecting . . . an eloquent brief on the transformative powers of fiction.

New York Times

Playful, sombre and tender, Nafisi's character-vignettes persuade us that reading nourishes empathy and friendship, opening the forbidden path through the green gate.

Independent

A moving and convincing case for the necessity of literature

Big Issue in the North

An arresting read … striking and utterly persuasive

Times Higher Education

Nafisi argues passionately

New Statesman

The book is a triumph … Most of all, I admire Nafisi’s bravery in challenging the commercialisation of America’s cultural and educational life … Nafisi’s sustained critique of trends in the American higher education system has a lot to say to UK readers and academics as well. Overall, the project is clever and poignant and steers clear of preachiness or schmaltz. But perhaps more impressive is the fact that although this is ostensibly a book about reading, Nafisi covers so many different aspects of life: morality, loneliness, coffee shops, technology, suicide, race, gender. In the end, the republic of imagination is not ‘about’ anything: what it comes down to is a single question. How should we live – as a society and as individuals?

New Welsh Review