About:

Plots. Political intrigue. Treachery. The high-handed actions of omnipotent rulers. Death by decree.

That’s the world that Bahiyyih Nakhjavani plunges readers into with The Woman Who Read Too Much: Persia in the mid-nineteenth century, a society that clings to the old ways even as the world around it is rapidly transforming. When a female poet, a historical figure who was also a theologian and revolutionary, dares to reject the veil and begin agitating for female literacy, her campaign shakes the very foundations of Persian society.

Rich in drama and political intrigue, this novel spins fiction around history to reveal the past as it was lived, as people, tested by their times, are forced to make terrifying choices: to risk their security, even their lives, for the sake of abstract principles of justice, equity, and rights, a struggle that continues today in Iran and throughout the world.

Speaker:

BAHIYYIH NAKHJAVANI

Bahiyyih Nakhjavani grew up in Uganda, was educated in the United Kingdom and the United States, and now lives in France. She is the author of The Saddlebag and Paper as well as nonfiction works about fundamentalism and education. Her novels have been published into French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Greek, Turkish, Hebrew, Russian, and Korean.