Roya Hakakian - Author/Journalist/Filmmaker

Author, journalist and filmmaker Roya Hakakian was the guest speaker at WSJL's 2009 Annual Meeting on Sunday April 26 at the Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts at UW-Milwaukee.

Ms. Hakakian also lectured at Alverno College, Boswell Book Company, Hillel Foundation-Milwaukee and Congregation Emanu-El B'ne Jeshurun. See her complete schedule.

Read more about Roya at her website www.royahakakian.com.

Hakakian witnessed the 1979 revolution in Iran as a young Jewish girl growing up in Tehran, which she vividly depicts in her new book, Journey from the Land of No. Her memoir was a Barnes & Noble's Pick of the Week, Ms. Magazine's Must-Read of the Summer, Publishers Weekly's Best Book of the Year, Elle Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of 2004, and was named Best Memoir by the Connecticut Center for the Book in 2005. Roya is also a recipient of the 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction.

She has collaborated on more than a dozen hours of programming for network television, including "60 Minutes," A&E's "Travels with Harry," ABC documentary specials with the late Peter Jennings, Discovery and the Learning Channel. Commissioned by UNICEF, her most recent film was "Armed and Innocent" about the involvement of underage children in wars around the world. It was a nominee for best short documentary at several film festivals around the world.

Hakakian is author of two collections of poetry in Persian. She was listed among the leading new voices in Persian poetry in the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies around the world.

Her opinion columns, essays and book reviews appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other leading publications. She is a contributor to the "Weekend Edition" of NPR's "All Things Considered" and a member of the editorial board of World Affairs: A Journal of Ideas and Debate. Hakakian is a fellow at Yale University's Whitney Humanities Center and a founding member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.

Hakakian was born and raised in Tehran. She came to the United States in 1985 on political asylum. She resides in Connecticut with her husband and twin boys.

The WSJL Annual Meeting was held on Sunday, April 26 at noon at UWM's Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts. Read more about the Annual Meeting.