War of words

5 April 2012

Addressing U.S. booksellers, American President Franklin Roosevelt declared that: 'People die, but books never die. Books are weapons. And it's part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom.'

It is no wonder, therefore, that totalitarian states throughout history have tried to censor, ban or burn books, and murder their writers and publishers.

In these two fascinating but very different studies, Asne Seierstad and Azar Nafisi examine the predicament of writers, booksellers and publishers living under the most brutal of recent despotic governments: the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Mullahs in Iran.

The crucial difference between the two accounts is that Seierstad is a Norwegian journalist who entered Kabul with the Northern Alliance in November 2001, after the worst of the horrors was over, and spent four months living with a prominent bookseller, Sultan Khan, and his family.

Nafisi, on the other hand, narrates her own story of persecution and survival during the 17 years between the fall of the Shah and her departure from Iran.

Nafisi, the daughter of the youngest-ever mayor of Tehran, taught English at the city's university before resigning in protest at having to wear the veil.

In 1995, she invited seven of her favourite former students to join a clandestine reading group. When the women arrived and shook off their mandatory robes, the room became 'a place of transgression'.

In a neat - if somewhat academic - conceit, Nafisi uses certain key novels (Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Pride And Prejudice and Daisy Miller) as a springboard for an account of the Iranian revolution and its impact on the women's lives.

She was forced to defend The Great Gatsby in a mock trial involving a male student who described it as a corrupt book that poisoned their minds, and who urged her instead 'to teach Iranian students to fight against American immorality'.

The irony, which she deftly brings out, is that just as Gatsby fell victim to the American dream, so Iran was in the grip of a similar illusion that had caused untold suffering.

It is hard to remain calm as she relates the horrors and absurdities of a regime in which the Chief Censor (and subsequent head of television) was blind, one of the reading group was subjected to a humiliating virginity test and 25 lashes for exhibiting 'Western attitudes', and the Ayatollah Khomeini suggested sex with a chicken as a remedy for a man's excess appetites - and then ruminated on whether he should be allowed to eat its meat.

Meanwhile, publishing houses were set on fire, newspapers closed, journalists jailed and a plot to send a bus full of writers careering over a precipice was narrowly foiled.

Nafisi was one of the fortunate ones, able to escape to the United States, where she continues to write and teach.

Khan and his family were, likewise, among the survivors of Afghanistan's political turmoil.

One of the few things to unite the three successive governments in Kabul - the communists, the Mujahedeen and the Taliban - was a hatred of free expression. As a leading bookseller, Khan fell foul of each in turn, seeing his stock destroyed and serving two terms in prison.

Nevertheless, he remained unharmed, as did 10,000 of his books, which he had hidden in attics throughout the city. With the fall of the Taliban, he was well-placed to expand his business, both as a bookseller and a publisher.

He invited Seierstad, whom he had befriended in his shop, to stay with his extended family and write about their lives.

Whereas Nafisi focuses on state tyranny, Seierstad exposes its domestic equivalent. Khan describes himself as a 'liberal man, not a fundamentalist'. Yet, to Western eyes, he appears as authoritarian as the Ayatollah.

He dominates his sons, refusing to allow the 12-year-old Aimal to attend school, insisting that he work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, selling confectionary in a hotel foyer in order to gain business skills.

Aimal's position is, however, infinitely preferable to that of the women in the family, who are treated as slaves by even their youngest male relatives.

This can be seen in its mildest form when Sultan's oldest son, Mansur, beats his aunt with impunity, and at its most savage when a relative is smothered to death by her three brothers for committing adultery.