Lila Azam Zanganeh
Lila Azam Zanganeh is a writer raised in Paris, France, by exiled Iranian parents. She lives and works in New York City.[1] She is the author of The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness (Norton, 2011).[2]
Life and work
Azam Zanganeh was born in Paris to Iranian parents. After studying literature and philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure, she moved to the United States to teach literature, cinema, and Romance languages at Harvard University. In 2002, she began contributing literary articles, interviews, and essays to a host of American and European publications, among which The New York Times, The Paris Review, Le Monde, and la Repubblica.[3][4]
Her first book, The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness, has been published by W. W. Norton & Company in the United States, Penguin Books in the United Kingdom, L'Olivier in France, Contact in Holland, L'Ancora del Mediterraneo in Italy, Duomo Ediciones in Spain, Azbooka in Russia, and Alfaguara Objetiva in Brazil, where it reached #10 on the national Brazilian bestseller list. In 2015, it will be published by Shang Shu in China, Büchergilde Gutenberg in Germany, and Everest in Turkey.
She is fluent in seven languages (English, French, Persian, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Portuguese) and is the recipient of the 2011 Roger Shattuck Prize for Criticism, awarded each year by the Center for Fiction. She writes and lives in New York City, and is at work on a new novel titled Inventions (of Love and Madness).[5]
Social initiatives
Azam Zanganeh serves on the Board of Overseers of the International Rescue Committee and the Advisory Board of Words Without Borders. Up until the end of 2011, she also served on the advisory board of The Lunchbox Fund, a non-profit organization which provides a daily meal to students of township schools in Soweto of South Africa.
Selected publications
- O Encantador - Nabokov e A Felicidade (2013). ISBN 978-85-7962-219-9
- Волшебник: Набоков и счастье (2013). ISBN 978-5-389-04825-6
- The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness (2011). ISBN 978-0-393-07992-0
- L'enchanteur: Nabokov et le bonheur (2011). ISBN 978-2-87929-708-8
- Un incantevole sogno di felicità: Nabokov, le farfalle e la gioia di vivere (2011). ISBN 978-88-8325-296-9
- De tovenaar : Nabokov en geluk (2011). ISBN 978-90-254-3581-3
- My Sister, Guard Your Veil, My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices (2006) (edited by Lila Azam Zanganeh). ISBN 978-0-8070-0463-0
References
- ↑ Heyman, Stephen (May 24, 2011). "Reading 'Lolita.' Forgetting Tehran". nytimes.com. Retrieved June 6, 2011.
- ↑ "The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness". Lila Azam Zanganeh (Author), W.W. Norton.
- ↑ "Umberto Eco, The Art of Fiction No. 197", The Paris Review, Summer 2008, No. 185.
- ↑ "Jorge Semprún, The Art of Fiction No. 192", The Paris Review, Spring 2007, No. 180.
- ↑ William Skidelsky, "Lila Azam Zanganeh: 'I've always wanted to push myself to do things I don't know how to do'", The Observer, 26 May 2011.
External links
- "Ecstasy on 3 x 5 Cards: Lila Azam Zanganeh’s Nabokov", interview on Radio Open Source with Christopher Lydon, June 1, 2011.
- Lila Azam Zanganeh on the portal RAI Letteratura