A bit more autobiography, and a bit more still.

Quite by chance, forgetting that I had written about autobiographies on Friday, I found myself at work on Saturday reading Afir Nafizi's Things I have been silent about. I read Reading Lolita in Tehran a while ago, but this was quite different. I felt it was much more of a personal story than her first book, but gave no less of an insight into life in Iran (and also briefly in Lancaster in Britain when she was sent away for schooling). It's not a soothing autobiography, not just because of the political turmoil which formed the background to her childhood, but as a result of turbulent family relationships. Her father is also imprisoned at one point. I would certainly recommend this, even if you didn't enjoy Reading Lolita, because it is quite a different book, but which also explains the first book.

I got out the second volume of Penelope Fitzgerald's autobiography from the library at lunchtime, and nearly made myself late back to work because I was enjoying her stories of an unconventional married life as a writer during the war, while her husband was away and then later a conscientious objector. I didn't get very far, but I'm looking forward to the rest of it tonight.