Iranian Author Azar Nafisi to Speak as Part of KLRU's Spark: Engaging Speakers Series

We are big supporters of our local Public Broadcasting Station KLRU. From Charlie Rose to Austin City Limits, we constantly find engaging, informative and entertaining programming to satisfy our television fix. But KLRU is more than just a television station; it is a part of the community. Exhibit A: Spark: KLRU's Engaging Speakers Series, formerly known as the Distinguished Speaker Series. We have been fortunate enough to attend a couple of these speaker events in the past at the KLRU studios, but the times they are a-changin (for the better), as Spark moves from the LBJ Library Auditorium to the Paramount Theater.

Writer Azar Nafisi is the featured speaker on Wednesday, March 29 for the Spark International Affairs Lecture. Nafisi rose to fame with her best-selling book Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books. Currently a Visiting Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, Nafisi has been a professor of English literature at the University of Tehran. After the Iranian revolution and rise to power of the Ayatollah Khomeini, she became restless with the stringent rules imposed upon women. In 1995, she quit teaching and began having secret meetings to study books like Lolita, works considered dangerous to read in Iranian society.

Visit KLRU's website for more information about the Spark series and to purchase tickets. Tickets are also available for purchase at the Paramount box office or online here.

Not one to be left behind in our ever-changing media world, Spark even has its own blog. Check it out.

*Be the first to email us (editors@austinist.com) with the name of the author of Lolita and win a pair of tickets to see Ms. Nafisi next Wednesday. We have a winner. Congrats to reader Matt Smith.*