Things I've Been Silent About

Nafisi is eloquent and expressive

Zena Alkayat, Time Out

Nafisi's account is rarely shrill or self pitying, preferring to let her stories tell themselves

Aamer Hussein, The Independent

In her new book Nafisi ... once again blends the autobiographical and the political to write about the Iran of the past 80 years ... Nafisi, who has proven her political mettle by standing against both the Shad's and the Ayatollah's regimes, confronts her "inner censors" in this account of the life of a dysfunctional family in revolutionary times. She used the story of her intellectually and politically prominent family as the "backdrop" to the turbulent history of 20th century Iran, a country trying to come to terms with modernity while remaining true to both its Islamic and imperial histories...Nafisi's vivid snapshots of life in pre-revolutionary Iran among the intellectual and political elite, with constant streams of social gatherings and endless political chatter and gossip, brings back to life a cultural milieu that largely disappeared with the 1979 Islamic revolution ... [and] the personal is skilfully interwoven with the social and political

Maria Baghramian, Irish Times

This is a poignant memoir: part therapy, part chronicle

Jack Carrigan, Catholic Herald

Things I've Been Silent About is a kind of companion volume to Nafisi's 2003 memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran ... giving us finely etched portraits of her tempestuous authoritarian mother, and her doting, unassertive father, who was a mayor Tehran under the Shah

Michiko Katkutani, Scotland on Sunday

A portrait of a family and a country that are at once alluring and deeply dysfunctional

Economist

[A] beautifully written memoir

Financial Times

Things I've Been Silent About transports us to a world that is at once enchanting and threatening; it is a tale that mixes family feuds, politics and literature and holds our interest from the first to the last page

Financial Times

A beautiful and sensitive book... [Nafisi's] belief in the power of culture to transform lives and societies is inspiring

The Times

A companion memoir to the bestselling Reading Lolita in Tehran, this is Azar Nafisi's more personal account of growing up in Iran...an intriguing memoir

Metro

This powerful memoir, from the author of the global hit Reading Lolita in Tehran, is a bewitching story ... Set against the background of change before the Islamic Revolution, it is a complex, provocative story of family life, lies and loves

Good Housekeeping

Nafisi proves a compelling, and moving, witness

New Statesman

If you enjoyed the wonderful Reading Lolita in Tehran by this author, you have another treat in store... it offers wonderful insights

Waterstones Books Quarterly

A gifted storyteller with a mastery of Western literature, Nafisi knows how to use language both to settle scores and to seduce. Her family secrets pour forth in a flood of revelations of anger, humiliation and deceit

The New York Times

An utterly memorable book

Guardian Weekly

All readers should read it

Margaret Atwood

Enthralled

Susan Sontag

This is a remarkable insight into a fascinating period of history, and a touching portrait of astonishing tenacity and integrity in the face of adversity that few in the Western world could imagine

Good Book Guide

A balanced, lucid narrative; a rich, complex account of this crucial part of Iranian history

Observer

A powerful memoir of Nafisi's Iranian childhood, her mother and a homeland shattered by political revolution

The Times