Porochista Khakpour

Porochista Khakpour
Name	Porochista Khakpour
Occupation	Novelist, essayist, journalist, professor
Nationality	Iranian-American

Porochista Khakpour is an Iranian-American novelist, essayist, and professor known for her novels, memoirs, and essays that explore diasporic identity, illness, and contemporary culture. Her work spans fiction and nonfiction and has appeared in major publications while she has taught at universities and written books that received critical acclaim. Khakpour's writing intersects with literary communities, public media, and activist causes.

Early life and education

Khakpour was born in Tehran during the era of the Iranian Revolution and emigrated to the United States amid the aftermath of the Iran–Iraq War and the White Revolution. Her family relocated to Los Angeles, where she grew up in a diasporic Iranian community alongside institutions like Persian-language media and neighborhoods influenced by Holy Cross Cemetery (Los Angeles), Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica. She attended schools in California and later pursued higher education at institutions associated with literary figures and programs such as Sarah Lawrence College, Boston University, Columbia University, New York University, University of Iowa, and workshops linked to the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Mentors and contemporaries during her formation have included connections to writers and teachers who taught at Yale University, Harvard University, Rutgers University, University of California, Irvine, and University of California, Berkeley.

Literary career

Khakpour's debut novel entered conversations alongside works by authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Kazuo Ishiguro, Salman Rushdie, Saeed Jones, and Mohsin Hamid and was published into markets influenced by publishers such as Riverhead Books, Penguin Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Knopf, and Random House. Her novels and short fiction have been reviewed in outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Granta, and The Paris Review. Fellow novelists and contemporaries like Zadie Smith, Junot Díaz, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, and Don DeLillo provide a context for her placement within debates about identity and style. Literary festivals and conferences that have featured her work include Hay Festival, Scotiabank Giller Prize events, BookExpo America, Brooklyn Book Festival, and panels alongside writers from Center for Fiction, Poets & Writers, and the National Book Foundation community.

Themes and influences

Khakpour's writing addresses diasporic Iranian identity in dialogue with cultural figures and movements such as Persian literature, Roxana Saberi, Azar Nafisi, Marjane Satrapi, Forugh Farrokhzad, and Simone de Beauvoir. She examines illness and disability in conversation with scholars and writers linked to Paul Kalanithi, Susan Sontag, Audre Lorde, Eula Biss, and Siri Hustvedt. Her work intersects with filmic and musical references from Iranian cinema, Asghar Farhadi, Abbas Kiarostami, Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, and pop culture figures like Madonna, David Bowie, and Kurt Cobain. Political and historical contexts shaping her themes include the 1979 Iranian Revolution, US–Iran relations, Operation Eagle Claw, Iranian diaspora politics, and debates involving institutions such as United Nations and International Criminal Court in human-rights contexts. Literary influences cite connections to traditions represented by Modernism, Postmodernism, Magical Realism, Realism (literature), and authors across languages such as Günter Grass, Gabriel García Márquez, Annie Ernaux, and Clarice Lispector.

Journalism and nonfiction work

Khakpour's journalism and essays have appeared in publications including Vogue, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian (London), Los Angeles Review of Books, The Paris Review, and digital platforms like BuzzFeed, Slate, and Salon (website). She has reported on topics related to immigration and public health in outlets such as NPR, PBS NewsHour, BBC News, and appeared on panels with journalists from The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly Group, ProPublica, and Vice Media. Her memoir and nonfiction engagements dialog with public-health narratives involving organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, and investigations similar to reporting by Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer, and Rachel Carson in their influence on nonfiction practice.

Teaching, public engagement, and activism

Khakpour has taught creative writing and literature at universities and programs associated with Syracuse University, Rutgers University–Newark, University of California, Irvine, Columbia University School of the Arts, and writing workshops such as MFA programs and institutions like Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and MacDowell Colony. Her public engagement includes appearances at institutions and venues like Barnes & Noble, Strand Bookstore, Joe's Pub, 92nd Street Y, Paley Center for Media, and media appearances on The Daily Show, The Rachel Maddow Show, and interview programs hosted by Charlie Rose, Anderson Cooper, and Oprah Winfrey Network. Activism and advocacy work align her with groups and causes connected to Human Rights Watch, ACLU, Immigration Equality, Planned Parenthood, and climate-focused networks tied to Sierra Club and 350.org.

Awards and recognition

Khakpour's work has received recognition including nominations and awards in spaces connected to PEN America, National Book Critics Circle, Lambda Literary Awards, Pulitzer Prize conversations, and prizes administered by foundations such as the MacArthur Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Whiting Awards, and PEN/Faulkner Foundation. Her books have been listed in year-end best-books lists from The New York Times Book Review, Time (magazine), Entertainment Weekly, The Economist, and NPR Books and have been finalists for prizes associated with Los Angeles Times Book Prize and National Book Award discussions. She has been a fellow or resident at programs including Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Yaddo, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program.

Category:Living people Category:Iranian-American writers