Laleh Khadivi

Laleh Khadivi is the author of four novels, including The Age of Orphans, which received a Whiting Writers' Award; The Walking; A Good Country, a New York Times Editors' Choice; and Female Life on Planet Earth, forthcoming September 22nd, 2026. Her essays, stories, and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, LA Times, McSweeney's and Lithub among others. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, a Stein Fellowship at Stanford University, and a John Felice Fellowship in Rome. A former documentary filmmaker, she has taught and spoken at universities and literary festivals across the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Born in Esfahan, Iran, she works now as an Associate Professor and Chair of the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco and lives in the Bay Area with her excellent family and two very good dogs.