Roya Hakakian

Who is Roya Hakakian?

Roya Hakakian; born 1966 in Iran is an Iranian-American poet, journalist and writer living in the United States. A lauded Persian poet turned television producer with programs like 60 Minutes, Hakakian became well known for her memoir, Journey from the Land of No in 2004. Her essays on Iranian issues appear in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and on NPR. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008, she published Assassins of the Turquoise Palace in 2011, a non-fiction account of the Mykonos restaurant assassinations of Iranian opposition leaders in Berlin.

Hakakian was a founding member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and serves on the board of Refugees International. Harry Kreisler's Political Awakenings: Conversations with History highlighted Hakakian among "20 of the most important activists, academics, and journalists of our generation".