Storytelling as Resistance

Every night, with a single story, Scheherazade weaves her way back to life in the 1,001 Nights. Young men and women in totalitarian regimes read illicit novels and recite poems to conjure their own means of survival. As for the novelist, he spins tale after tale to fight his reader's ennui, that irrepressible desire to snap the book shut. How and why are stories the stuff of Resistance, both for readers and for writers? With Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya, Lila Azam Zanganeh, and Gholam-Reza Shafiee. Moderated by Noreen Tomassi.