News Release

This month, the Main Library will play host to Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran; Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma; and several authors—including Alice Walker—reading writers’ works from “enemy nations.”

Azar Nafisi will read from and discuss Reading Lolita in Tehran and her current work at 6 p.m. on Nov. 9 in the Koret Auditorium at the Main Library. A book sale and author signing will follow. The genesis of her novel stemmed from Nafisi’s experience with seven female students whom she met every Thursday morning from 1995 to 1997 amidst the Islamic revolution in Iran to secretly discuss Western literature. Earning high acclaim and an enthusiastic readership, Reading Lolita in Tehran is an incisive exploration of the transformative powers of fiction in a world of tyranny. Reading Reading Lolita in Tehran has been translated into 32 languages and has won numerous literary awards, including the 2004 Nonfiction Book of the Year Award from Booksense. This event is presented by Facing History and Ourselves, an international educational and professional development organization.

On Nov. 29 at 6 p.m. in the Main Library’s Koret Auditorium, Bay Area authors and special guests will read from and discuss works celebrating the literature and humanity from so-called “enemy” nations. Alice Walker will read from and discuss the work of Salah Al-Hamdani, exiled Iraqi playwright and poet. Two new anthologies will be read from and discussed by publisher Li Miao Lovett (Literature From the ‘Axis of Evil’) and editor Persis Karim (Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora). Writer Lea Aschkenas will read the work of Cuban writer Ana Lidίa Vega Serova and writer Kareem James Abu-Zeid will read from the work of Syrian born poet, Adonis.

Michael Pollan will read and discuss The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, an insightful account about the food we eat and how it is produced, at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 30 in the Koret Auditorium at the Main Library. In his book, Pollan, a journalism professor at U.C. Berkeley and investigative journalist, takes us on several field-to-table journeys, delineating the elements which make up four different meals: industrially-produced “fast” food; “alternate” food purchased from one of the major organic grocery chains; food grown and gathered on a small “sustainable” farm in Virginia; and “wild” foods (such as mushrooms and pig) which Pollan went hunting for himself. Along the way, he examines the role of corn which has evolved into one of the leading ingredients in industrial foods. Despite the notion of endless variety available to American consumers, a quarter of all supermarket foods are made from corn. Pollan shows the ecological costs of putting this highly versatile plant at the center of the food business.

All programs are free and open to the public. For more information, please call (415) 557-4277.

Note: Photos are available for publication.