Wichita State University will host a talk about the power of fiction in forging and sustaining a democracy by No. 1 New York Times best-selling author Azar Nafisi at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6, at the CAC Theater. The event is sponsored by Watermark Books and Cafe.

Nafisi became famous 10 years ago with the debut of her million-copy best-seller, “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” which told the story of how, against a backdrop of morality squads and executions, she taught American literature to students in Iran. Her work revealed how fiction can serve as a vital antidote to ideology in a totalitarian society.

In her follow-up book, Nafisi has crafted an impassioned tribute to the equally vital role of fiction in a democratic society, urging readers to reject the ideological rigidity that poisons America’s political discourse in favor of a more generous view of citizenship. The author recounts how she first discovered America and its fictional landscape as a young girl in Tehran, and reminds us of the vital role fiction and imagination played in the lives of the founding fathers. Her commentary tackles everything from the crisis in the humanities to a devastating critique of the new Common Core curriculum.

Nafisi is a visiting professor and director of the Dialogue Project at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University. She has taught Western literature at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University and the University of Allameh Tabatabai in Iran, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New Republic, and has appeared on countless radio and television programs.

Nafisi’s stop is part of her tour of the U.S., which includes upcoming interviews with all the major media. Tickets for the event are $32, which includes a copy of her new book, “The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books.”