Bestselling
Author of Funny in
Farsi:
A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
Firoozeh Dumas was born
in Abadan , Iran and, in the 1970’s, moved to Southern
California with her family. She later attended UC Berkeley where
she met and married a Frenchman. Her two memoirs are Funny
in Farsi and Laughing
without an Accent.
Firoozeh grew up listening
to her father, a former Fulbright Scholar, recount the many
colorful stories of his life in both Iran and America . In 2001,
with no prior writing experience, Firoozeh decided to write
her stories as a gift for her two children. Funny
in Farsi was on the San Francisco Chronicle and Los
Angeles Times bestseller lists and was a finalist for the
PEN/USA award in 2004 and a finalist in 2005 for an Audie Award
for best audio book. (She lost to Bob Dylan.) She was also a
finalist for the prestigious Thurber Prize for American Humor
(she lost to Jon Stewart), and is the first Middle Eastern woman
ever to be considered for this honor. Critics and readers of
all ages have loved her stories. Jimmy Carter called Funny in
Farsi “A humorous and introspective chronicle of a life
filled with love—of family, country and heritage.”
Orange County Reads One Book selected Funny
in Farsi as its book of the year for 2004, as did the city
of Whittier in 2005 and the cities of Cape Ann , MA and Palo
Alto , CA in 2006. Funny in Farsi is now on the California Recommended
Reading List for grades 6 – 12, and is used in many junior
high, high schools, and universities. Her commentaries have
been broadcast on NPR and published in the Los Angeles Times,
the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle Magazine,
and Lifetime Magazine.
Firoozeh Dumas’s
latest memoir, entitled Laughing
without an Accent, was published in May 2008. In April 2005,
her one-woman show, “Laughing Without an Accent”
opened in Northern California to sold out audiences and ran
at Theatreworks in Mountain View , California in 2006.
For the past five years,
Firoozeh has traveled the country reminding us that our commonalities
far outweigh our differences…and doing so with humor.
She has spoken in conferences, schools, churches, Jewish Temples
and Islamic centers. Her travels have taken her from the East
Coast to the West Coast, from Harvard University to UCLA. Everywhere
she has gone, audiences have embraced her message of shared
humanity and invited her back for more.
