Roya Hakakian

Visit the author's website at www.royahakakian.com.

Roya Hakakian is a fellow at Yale University's Whitney Humanities Center. Having come to the United States in May 1985 on political asylum, she serves on the board of Refugees International and is a founding member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. Her memoir of growing up a Jewish teenager in post-revolutionary Iran, JOURNEY FROM THE LAND OF NO: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, Elle Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of 2004, a Barnes & Noble Pick of the Week, and a Ms. Magazine Must Read of the Summer. It also received the Persian Heritage Foundation's 2006 Book Award and the Connecticut Center for the Book's Best Memoir of 2005. It has been published in translation in the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany.

Her opinion columns, essays, and reviews are published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other periodicals. She is also a contributor to the Weekend Edition of NPR's "All Things Considered." She has collaborated on over a dozen hours of programming for leading journalism units on network television, including 60 Minutes and ABC Documentary Specials with the late Peter Jennings, and also on A&E, Discovery, and The Learning Channel. Commissioned by UNICEF, her recent film, "Armed and Innocent," on the subject of the involvement of underage children in wars around the world, was a nominee for best short documentary at the Hollywood Film Festival.

She speaks on the subject of the Middle East and human rights and has appeared on ABC Evening News, CSPAN-Book TV, CNN International, CBS Early Show, and Now with Bill Moyers.

ASSASSINS OF THE TURQUOISE PALACE (Grove/Atlantic, 2011)