I No Longer Believe That We Can

I Finally Returned To Iran In 1979, When I Got My Degree In English And American Literature, And Stayed For 18 Years In The Islamic Republic.

I Would Like To Say How Much I Resent People Who Say Of The Islamic Republic That This Is Our Culture - As If Women Like To Be Stoned To Death, Or As If They Like To Be Married At The Age Of Nine.

I No Longer Believe That We Can Keep Silent. We Never Really Do, Mind You. In One Way Or Another We Articulate What Has Happened To Us Through The Kind Of People We Become.

We Do Not Read In Order To Turn Great Works Of Fiction Into Simplistic Replicas Of Our Own Realities, We Read For The Pure, Sensual, And Unadulterated Pleasure Of Reading. And If We Do So, Our Reward Is The Discovery Of The Many Hidden Layers Within These Works That Do Not Merely Reflect Reality But Reveal A Spectrum Of Truths, Thus Intrinsically Going Against The Grain Of Totalitarian Mindsets.

When I Was Teaching At The University Of Tehran We Were Struggling Against The Implementation Of The Revolution Rules.