A Jewish Girl in Revolutionary Iran

Introduction: I’m your host this week, Iona Italia. My guest today is the writer, academic, and journalist Roya Hakakian. Roya is the author of three books. Her second book, Assassins of the Turquoise Palace (2011) is an account of the murders of three Kurdish-Iranian activists in Berlin and its aftermath; her third book, A Beginner’s Guide to America for the Immigrant and the Curious is a love letter to her adoptive nation. In addition to her books, Roya has produced an extensive body of writing that ranges from investigative journalism to Persian-language poetry. She is also a founder member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. She has written several articles for Quillette and has previously appeared on our podcast to talk to my colleague Jonathan Kay about how an Iranian Islamist managed to infiltrate American academe.

Today, I am going to talk to Roya about her first book: Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran. The book provides a detailed account—deeply poetic, funny and moving—of her experiences growing up as a member of Tehran’s tiny but flourishing Jewish community, first under the Shah, then amid the fervour that accompanied the Islamic Revolution and finally amid the events that followed, which were both sinister and comically absurd.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Roya Hakakian.