After teaching literature at three universities in Tehran (and being expelled or resigning in despair from each) Azar Nafisi picked seven of her best students and invited them to come to her home every week to discuss books. She and her students, all women, began to think of these classes as an escape from the reality of Iran's totalitarian theocracy; but the picture her book paints is of an escape to a true republic where they are all able to discover another reality - themselves.