Roya Hakakian

Roya Hakakian
Roya Hakakian
Roya Hakakian
BornPersian: رویا حکاکیان
ca. 1966
Tehran, Iran
Occupation
  • Writer
  • Journalist
  • Lecturer
LanguagePersian, English
CitizenshipAmerican
Alma materBrooklyn College
GenreNon-Fiction
Website
www.royahakakian.com

Roya Hakakian (Persian: رویا حکاکیان; born 1966) is an Iranian American Jewish journalist, lecturer, and writer. Born in Iran, she came to the United States as a refugee and is now a naturalized citizen. She is the author of several books, including an acclaimed memoir in English called Journey from the Land of No (Crown), Assassins of the Turquoise Palace (Grove/Atlantic), and A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious (Knopf).

Deeply influenced by both the longstanding literary traditions of her birth country and its historical turmoils, Roya Hakakian often draws her inspirations from highly political subjects and treats them with lyricism. She takes on the most pressing and difficult contemporary sociopolitical issues —exile, persecution, censorship— and injects them with relevance and urgency through her deeply observant and poetic sensibility to make these subjects accessible to all readers.