Roya Hakakian

Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran (Crown) was a Barnes & Noble's Pick of the Week, Ms. magazine Must Read of the Summer, Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year, and an Elle magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of 2004.[14] It also won the Persian Heritage Foundation's 2006 Latifeh Yarshater Book Award, and is the 2005 winner of the Best Memoir by the Connecticut Center for the Book. It has been a Freshman Experience Book at several colleges throughout the US and has been translated into Dutch, Spanish, and German. It was selected by The Guardian as the top 10 books about Iran in 2020.[15]

Hakakian's book Assassins of the Turquoise Palace (Grove/Atlantic) was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Pick and a New York Times’ Notable Book of 2011. In a piece for Slate Magazine, philosopher and social critic Christopher Hitchens called the book "unmissable."[16] Hakakian's characterization of German attorneys Alexander von Stahl and Bruno Jost led the United States Federal Bar Association to honor to those attorneys with a ceremony at the Daniel Moynihan Federal Courthouse in New York City on February 25, 2014.[17] Assassins was also named among the 2011 Best of Nonfiction by Kirkus Reviews.[18]

Hakakian's upcoming book, A Beginner's Guide to America, is scheduled for release in March 2021.[19] Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan called the book "striking and beautiful," while Amy Chua, Yale professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, described it as "just what America needs."

Hakakian is the author of two collections of poetry in Persian, the first of which, For the Sake of Water, was nominated as poetry book of the year by Iran News in 1993. In 2006, it won the Latifeh Yarshater Award from the Association for Iranian Studies. Hakakian was listed among the leading new voices in Persian poetry in the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies around the world, including La Regle Du Jeu and Strange Times My Dear: The PEN Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature,[20] which features works from over 40 writers who have contributed, "to this rich and varied collection—or, to use the Persian term, golchine, a bouquet—one that provides a much-needed window into a largely undiscovered branch of world literature."[21] Hakakian's work also appears in the forthcoming W.W. Norton’s Contemporary Voices of the Eastern World: An Anthology of Poems. She contributes to the Persian Literary Review, and served as the poetry editor of Par Magazine for six years.[22] One of her poetic influences is Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou.[23][24]

Hakakian 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's Documentary Specials with Peter Jennings, Discovery and The Learning Channel. Commissioned by UNICEF, Hakakian's film, Armed and Innocent,[25] on the subject of the involvement of underage children in wars around the world, was a nominee for best short documentary at several festivals around the world. Actor Robert De Niro narrates the film, while one of the children featured is played by Ishmael Beah.[26]