Can literature provide readers with a kind of substitute emotional life?
There’s a sentence by Nabokov, “Readers are born free and they ought to remain free.” I wanted this book to be not just about authors, and freedoms of speech for authors, but about the freedom to read for readers, the freedom for readers to communicate with their authors, with the books that they choose to read. The most important lesson that we learned from the Islamic Republic, which connects directly to Nabokov and almost every single novel that he has written, is that freedom means nothing without first giving the individual the choice to fulfill himself or herself to the fullest of his or her potential. My generation didn’t understand that. We were given this freedom. We didn’t think about it. My daughter’s generation has been going to jail for wearing lipstick in the streets. They have been flogged seventy-six lashes for not wearing the veil properly. They have been deprived of holding hands in public with the man they love. So love, personal emotions, personal choices, right now
