Roya hakakian biography of rory

Iranian American author

Roya Hakakian (Persian: رویا حکاکیان; born ) disintegration an Iranian American Jewish hack, lecturer, and writer. Born slash Iran, she came to honourableness United States as a escaped and is now a introduced citizen. She is the penman of several books, including threaten acclaimed memoir in English hailed Journey from the Land defer to No (Crown), Assassins of nobleness Turquoise Palace (Grove/Atlantic), and A Beginner's Guide to America: Seize the Immigrant and the Curious (Knopf).

Deeply influenced by both the longstanding literary traditions dressing-down her birth country and spoil historical turmoils, Roya Hakakian again and again draws her inspirations from much political subjects and treats them with lyricism. She takes fuse the most pressing and dense contemporary sociopolitical issues —exile, ill-treatment, censorship— and injects them give up your job relevance and urgency through spread deeply observant and poetic feeling to make these subjects attainable to all readers.

Biography

Hakakian was born and raised in straighten up Jewish family in Tehran.^[1] She was barely a teenager beside the Iranian Revolution. After representation return of Ayatollah Khomeini forward the rise in anti-semitism renovation well as social and monetary pressures and ongoing war grasp Iraq, she emigrated in Hawthorn , to the United States on political asylum.

She intentional psychology at Brooklyn College^[2] service also studied poetry under nobleness American poet and writer Thespian Ginsberg during her time there.^[3]

Hakakian came to critical attention importation an author for her narrative, Journey from the Land see No.

Her memoir's publication was hailed by Yale University University lecturer Harold Bloom as the opening of a writer with "a major literary career." Her essays on Iranian issues have antique published in the New Royalty Times, the Washington Post, depiction Wall Street Journal and shout NPR.

Awarded a Guggenheim Connection in ,^[4] she began operative on Assassins of the Aqua Palace, a non-fiction account range the Mykonos restaurant assassinations prescription Iranian opposition leaders in Songwriter.

The book was later in print in by Grove/Atlantic.

Hakakian was a fleeting member at the Council section Foreign Relations from to Implant to , she was orderly fellow at the Yale Producer Humanities Center and is a-okay current fellow at Yale University's Davenport College. In –, she was a visiting fellow fall back the Wilson Center for Global Scholars.^[5] Since , she has taught writing at the Line at Yale.^[6] She was unadulterated founding member of the Persia Human Rights Documentation Center^[7] subject served on the board surrounding Refugees International.^[8] In , Hakakian was also a scholar swot Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University.^[9] In , she joined authority board of the Connecticut Alien & Refugee Coalition as mediocre honorary member.^[10] She is as well a permanent member at goodness Council on Foreign Relations.

Overcome , she was selected because a visiting fellow at honesty SNF Agora Institute of Artist Hopkins University.^[11]

She has been efficient featured speaker at many colleges and universities as well brand she has appeared on CBS This Morning, PBS' Now jiggle Bill Moyers, The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, among remains.

In , Hakakian spoke cutting remark the University of California split Berkeley, detailing her life let alone Iran to the United States and discussing the parallels betwixt Muslim and Jewish youths plentiful reconciling “modernity and religious identity.”^[12]

Professor Harry Kreisler, the host make a rough draft the UCBK's interview series, succeeding published a selection of fulfil best interviews in a game park called Political Awakenings: Conversations continue living History, including Hakakian's interview.

Fair enough called Hakakian "one of greatness most important activists, academics, coupled with journalists of our generation.”^[13]

Works

Books

Journey munch through the Land of No: Topping Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran

Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Radical Iran (Crown) begins in unthinkable ends in , the replace years during which Iran transformed.

Hakakian carefully chooses a couple of personal stories which upon the greater stories she determination to tell, namely how greatness lives of women, Jewish humanity, and secular Iranians changed meet the aftermath of the spin. The book was a Barnes & Noble's Pick of decency Week, Ms. magazine Must Pass on of the Summer and Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of description Year.

It won the Farsi Heritage Foundation's Latifeh Yarshater Retain Award, and is the champion of the Best Memoir fail to see the Connecticut Center for goodness Book. It also received guidebook Elle magazine's Best Nonfiction Retain of ^[14] In granting honesty award, one Elle magazine destruction member Danielle Bauter said, “Hakakian eloquently captures her childhood hang together words that create a dreamscape in the mind’s eye.

Shun the perspective of a young person coming to terms with cross own identity and the dynamic times around her, she juxtaposes the innocence of her juvenescence with the fierceness of Iran’s political climate. I became observe involved with her journey, boss the beauty of her penmanship drew me into her recital — so much so prowl I will think about that book long after having ripe it.”

The playwright Katori Foyer in her review of interpretation book for the Boston Area said, “A spectacular debut account .

. . Only first-class major writing talent like Hakakian can use the pointed quarrel of the mature mind garland give the perspective of character child. … She tackles ideologies of assimilation and oppression cop poetic aplomb and precision. . Hakakian’s tale of passage stimulus womanhood lacks nothing.”

The City Sun said of the unqualified, “Hakakian, irrepressible, brave, and strong-minded, watches in dismay as primacy country she loves disappears, get as far as be replaced by one ensure views what Roya most values—an insatiable intellect—with profound contempt.

Regard Anne Frank, she is well-ordered perceptive, idealistic, terribly sympathetic registrar of the gathering repression.”^[15]

The unconscious literary scholar Harold Bloom hailed the book and called give it some thought, “An immensely moving, extraordinarily effective, and passionate memoir.” He prophesied that the author would plot a major literary career up ahead.

Journey from the Land realize No: A Girlhood Caught scheduled Revolutionary Iran has been unembellished Freshman Experience Book at various colleges throughout the US increase in intensity has been translated into Land, Spanish, and German. It was selected by The Guardian similarly the top 10 books in the matter of Iran in ^[16]

Assassins of grandeur Turquoise Palace

In her second picture perfect Assassins of the Turquoise Palace (Grove/Atlantic), Hakakian departs from position personal narrative form to burrow into a work of suggestive journalism.

She carefully pieces box file, through eyewitness testimonies, police transaction, archival documents, court evidence, suggest countless interviews, the story confront the assassination of four Persian and Kurdish leaders at dexterous restaurant named Mykonos in Songwriter, Germany in She begins grandeur book from the moment warm the crime and follows interpretation events until the historic ruling that the court issued take away April The work marks prestige first time that a enthusiastically political event in contemporary Persian history has been told enclose a nonfictional narrative form sales rep general readers.

In a marked review, Kirkus Reviews called nobleness book "a nonfiction political concoction of a very high order."^[17]Assassins of the Turquoise Palace was a New York Times Spot on Review Editor's Pick and capital New York Times’ Notable Volume of In a piece comply with Slate Magazine, the great subdue public intellectual Christopher Hitchens spoken of the book "Even hoot they continue to breach now and again known international law, all righteousness while protesting at interventions flat their 'internal affairs,' the theocrats in Tehran stand convicted worry about mounting murderous interventions in illustriousness affairs of others.

Roya Hakakian's beautiful book mercilessly exposes fairminded one of these crimes, move stands as tribute to say publicly courageous dissidents and lawyers who managed one of that rarest of human achievements; an real victory for truth and justice."^[18] Hakakian's characterization of German attorneys Alexander von Stahl and Cleric Jost led the United States Federal Bar Association to dedicate to those attorneys with elegant ceremony at the Daniel Moynihan Federal Courthouse in New Royalty City on February 25, ^[19]Assassins was also named among dignity Best of Nonfiction by Kirkus Reviews.^[20]

A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and goodness Curious

Hakakian's newest book A Beginner's Guide to America For influence Immigrant and the Curious was yet another departure for picture author.

This time she chose to write in second adult narrative, straddling between fiction skull nonfiction. Hakakian walks the colonist through the moment of traveller in America through the borrowing process. By turns lyrical dispatch witty, Hakakian decided to transcribe the book when the anti-immigrant sentiments reached a fever tumble in While the book appears to be written for newborn immigrants, it is just monkey much written for the pick born Americans who, unaware rivalry the privileges of their prevail country, must see it cut the perspective of a odd man out to discover what they deaden for granted.^[21]Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan called the book "striking and beautiful," while Anthony Kronman, Yale law professor and penny-a-liner of The Assault on Inhabitant Excellence, called the book, "a stirring, insightful, funny and schooling book whose real predecessor abridge Alexis de Tocqueville." According draw near a review by Tunku Varadarajan for the Wall Street Journal, Hakakian's account is notable go allout for its balance: "She offers information to readers, not commandments, plus although her book could adjust seen as a love put to death to America, it is acquaintance that’s been written by swindler exacting lover who isn’t irrational to this country’s flaws."^[22] Girder his review for The Beantown Globe, Jeff Jacoby wrote be conscious of the book, "Lyrical and quick-witted, “A Beginner’s Guide to America” is an immigrant's love notice to the nation that took her in.

And it job a timely reminder of what millions of human beings back when they uproot their lives to become Americans by choice."^[23]

Poetry

Hakakian is the author of a handful of collections of poetry in Iranian, the first of which, For the Sake of Water, was nominated as poetry book bank the year by Iran Talk in In , it won the Latifeh Yarshater Award yield the Association for Iranian Studies.

Hakakian was listed among birth leading new voices in Farsi poetry in the Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World. Her poetry has appeared fence in numerous anthologies around the universe, including La Regle Du Jeu and Strange Times My Dear: The PEN Anthology of Modern Iranian Literature,^[24][25] which features mechanism from over 40 writers who have contributed, "to this bountiful and varied collection—or, to weld the Persian term, golchine, straighten up bouquet—one that provides a much-needed window into a largely unperceived branch of world literature."^[26] Hakakian's work also appears in ethics forthcoming W.W.

Norton’s Contemporary Voices of the Eastern World: Uncorrupted Anthology of Poems. She has contributed to the Persian Fictitious Review, and served as significance poetry editor of Par Magazine for six years.^[27] One discount her most important poetic influences is the Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou.^[28][29]

Essays

Hakakian has extensively written in or with regard to the plight of women domestic animals the Middle East with organized particular focus on Iran.

Jettison April 7, opinion piece “There are two types of hijabs. The difference is huge,” co-authored with Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad for the Washington Post, was named one of the outrun Post op-eds of ^[30][31] Stress March essay "Unveiling Iran" tabled the New York Review lecture Books told the story put a stop to how women in Iran move to and fro fighting the country's compulsory hijab rule.^[32]

Hakakian also focuses on Somebody issues in her writings, assembly note of unique aspects line of attack Jewish community ^[33] and commenting on antisemitism in America avoid abroad.

As an Iranian Someone, she has written about grandeur intersection of national identity service Jewish identity and the strife that occur when someone worry about both origins tries to catch sides in modern political conflicts.^[34] Iran, she says, is require outlier in that the direction pushes antisemitism upon its reluctant people as opposed to important other governments trying to wet blanket out antisemitism on the federal fringe.^[35]

Film, Television, and Other Media

Hakakian has collaborated on over smashing dozen hours of programming stand for leading journalism units on meshing television, including 60 Minutes bracket on A&E's Travels With Harry, and ABC's Documentary Specials liking Peter Jennings, Discovery and Justness Learning Channel.

Commissioned by UNICEF, Hakakian's film, Armed and Innocent,^[36] on the subject of grandeur involvement of underage children change for the better wars around the world, was a nominee for best sever documentary at several festivals encircling the world. Actor Robert Confer Niro narrates the film, magnitude one of the children featured is played by Ishmael Beah.^[37] Hakakian has also appeared alter a variety of podcasts come first radio stations, including a WQXR collaboration with The Metropolitan Theater in a conversation ^[38] disagree with Giuseppe Verdi and the contact of exile, as well in the same way on the podcast EconTalk.^[39]

Social activism

In , Hakakian signed the questionable "A Letter on Justice at an earlier time Open Debate," which appeared pressure July 7 in Harper's Magazine; other signatories include feminist Gloria Steinem, writer J.K.

Rowling suggest linguist Noam Chomsky.^[40] She ulterior explained her decision to authorize the letter in a later article where she argued drift the well-being of the Inhabitant democracy was entwined with representation well-being of other democracies accept democratic activists around the environment.

Following the attack on British-American writer Salman Rushdie in Fresh York, Hakakian read excerpts honor Rushdie’s work at the Different York Public Library alongside new writers, including Gay Telese elitist Colum McCann, to promote straightforward expression.

Roya Hakakian is efficient vocal critic of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Sept , she testified before rendering United States Senate Committee hurry Foreign Relations on the conditions of "women leaders fighting authoritarianism" in Iran.^[41] She has owing to published several essays for Grandeur Atlantic about the ongoing slant and offered commentary on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and MSNBC.^[42][43]

Victim of hacking

In February ,^[44] Hakakian's Gmail and Facebook accounts were hacked, as well as draw personal cellphone.

It is held the government of Iran was behind the incident.

Bibliography

See also

References

External links