I was born during the Iranian revolution and lived as a refugee for two years before being granted asylum in the United States. I am the author of The Ungrateful Refugee—winner of the Geschwister Scholl Preis and finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Kirkus Prize, and Elle Grand Prix des Lectrices, and called by the Observer "a work of astonishing, insistent importance." My essay of the same name was one of the Guardian's most widely read longreads in 2017, taught in schools across Europe, and anthologized by Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Nguyen, who wrote, "Dina Nayeri's powerful writing confronts issues that are key to the refugee experience." I traveled to Greece with Refugee Support in 2017 and 2018, my first visit to a refugee camp since living in one as a child. The experience was transformative and inspiring. I wrote about it in The Ungrateful Refugee and have been writing and speaking about Refugee Support since. A 2019-2020 fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, and winner of the 2018 UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, I have won a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the O. Henry Prize, and Best American Short Stories, and was a finalist for the 2017 Rome Prize, among other honours. My work has been published in 20+ countries and in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Granta, and many other publications. My playwriting work has been produced by the English Touring Theatre and The Old Vic in London and shortlisted for the Paines Plough Women's Prize. I have a BA from Princeton, and Master's degrees from Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Iowa Writers Workshop (where I was a Teaching Writing Fellow). I was an autumn 2021 Fellow at the American Library in Paris and recently joined the permanent faculty at University of St. Andrews.