Roya Hakakian
2008 Guggenheim Fellow for General Non-Fiction
When Terry Gross hosted Roya Hakakian on NPR's Fresh Air in early July, 2009, to talk about the recent Iranian elections, the ensuing protests and the murder of Neda, she was so impressed by Roya's thoughtful articulation of what was going on in Iran, she invited Roya back for a second interview the following week.
Committed to bridging cultures, since she herself bridges so many — Iranian, Jewish and American — Roya Hakakian's lecture presentations crackle with real frisson. Filtered through her special intelligence, her sweet humor and her gentle approach to complex issues, her incisive and precise commentary resonates with every kind of audience. By combining her young girl's experience of the Iranian revolution (the subject of her bestselling memoir, Journey from the Land of No) and twenty five years of living in America while applying her lucid intelligence, she has created an entertaining and illuminating lecture experience.
An inquisitive, lively and articulate young woman, Roya speaks all over the country at colleges, libraries, Hillels, and all kinds of associations. She talks about it all: the recent world focus on the Iranian election and the ensuing uprising, the role women have played in the current wave of protest, the ongoing nuclear standoff between Iran and Israel, the raison d'etre for Holocaust denial, and the unique predicament of Jews still living in Middle East. Her clear eyed, hopeful and sober analysis, her calm, humane understanding is absolutely inspiring. Hers is a multi-layered and careful vision of what both Iran and the United States need to do to end the dangerous stagnation of Middle Eastern status quo. Currently, she is a Yale fellow and mother of little boy twins, lecturing and completing her second non-fiction book — a real life international spy thriller, scheduled for publication in 2010.
Born and raised in a Jewish family in Tehran, Roya Hakakian came to the United States in May 1985 on political asylum. Her memoir of growing up a Jewish teenager in post-revolutionary Iran, Journey from the Land of No (Crown) was Barnes & Nobles Pick of the Week, Ms. Magazine's Must Reads of the Summer, Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year, and Elle Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of 2004.
She is a founding member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship and the 2003 Dewitt / Wallace Reader's Digest Fellowship in writing. She speaks on the subject of the Middle East and human rights and has appeared on CSPAN-Book TV, CNN International, CBS Early Show, and Now with Bill Moyers.
Roya has collaborated on over a dozen hours of programming for leading journalism units on network television, including 60 Minutes and on A & E's "Travels With Harry", and ABC Documentary Specials with the late Peter Jennings, Discovery and The Learning Channel. Commissioned by UNICEF, Roya's most recent film, Armed and Innocent on the subject of the involvement of underage children in wars around the world, was an official entry in the documentary category at several festivals, and a nominee for best short documentary at the Hollywood Film Festival.
Roya is also the author of two collections of poetry in Persian, the first of which, For the Sake of Water, received honorable mention in the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World and was nominated as the poetry book of the year by Iran News in 1993. Her poetry has consistently appeared in numerous anthologies around the world, including La Regle Du Jeu, the Pen Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature. She contributes to the Persian Literary Review and served as the poetry editor of Par Magazine for six years. Her opinion columns, essays, and book reviews appear in English language publications, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal among them. She is also a contributor to the Weekend Edition of NPR's All Things Considered.
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