Nahid Rachlin

Fiction Writer, Creative Nonfiction Writer

New York, NY
New York US

Author's Bio

Nahid Rachlin went to Columbia University Writing Program on a Doubleday-Columbia Fellowship and then went on to Stanford University writing program on a Stegner Fellowship. Her publications include a memoir, PERSIAN GIRLS (Penguin), four novels, JUMPING OVER FIRE (City Lights), FOREIGNER (W.W. Norton), MARRIED TO A STRANGER (E.P.Dutton, hardcover-City Lights, paperback). Her individual short stories have appeared in many magazines, including The Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Redbook, Shenandoah. One of her stories was adopted by Symphony Space, “Selected Shorts,” and was aired on NPR’s around the country and three stories were nominated for Pushcart Prize, the latest in 2015. Her work has received favorable reviews in major magazines and newspapers and translated into Portuguese, Polish, Italian, Dutch, German, Arabic, and Persian. She has been interviewed in NPR stations such as All Things Considered (Terry Gross), P&W magazine, Writers Chronicle. She has written reviews and essays for New York Times, Newsday, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. Other grants and awards she has received include the Bennet Cerf Award, PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught creative writing at Barnard College, Yale University and at a wide variety of writers conferences, including Paris Writers Conference, Geneva Writers Conference, and Yale Writers Conference. She has been judge for several fiction awards and competitions, among them, Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction (2015) sponsored by AWP, Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award sponsored by Poets & Writers, Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize, University of Maryland, English Dept, Teichmann Fiction Prize, Barnard College, English Dept. She gives readings and talks at a wide variety of places, including bookstores, high schools, colleges, libraries. For more please click on her website: website: http://www.nahidrachlin.com Sample reviews of my published books: -- Anne Tyler, NY Times Book Review "I am so impressed with Nahid Rachlin’s style--its purity and sparseness and immediacy. In remarkable few words, she has managed to bring to life an entire small pocket of existence… a rare intimate look at Iranians who are poorer and less educated... I have read (this book) four times by now, and each time I have discovered new layers in it. The voice is cool and pure. Bleak is the right word, if you will understand that bleakness can have a startling beauty." Boston Globe: "Persian Girls reads like a novel -- suspenseful, vivid, heartbreaking. In "Persian Girls, Rachlin chronicles her choices and those made by her sisters, her mother and her aunts, throwing the door to her family's home wide open. Readers who follow her through will be wiser, and moved." ***

Publications & Prizes

Creative Nonfiction

Book:
Persian Girls (Penguin, 2006)

Fiction

Books:
A Way Home, short story collection (Ravenna Press, 2018)
,
Crowd Of Sorrows (Kindle Singles, 2015)
,
Jumping Over Fire (City Lights, 2006)
,
Heart's Desire (City Lights, 1995)
,
Married to a Stranger (E.P. Dutton, 1994)
,
Foreigner (W. W. Norton & Company, 1979)
Journals:
Ararat
, ,
Confrontation
,
Fiction
, ,
Natural History
,
Redbook
,
Shenandoah
Prizes won: 

Nahid Rachlin went to Columbia University Writing Program on a Doubleday-Columbia Fellowship and then went on to Stanford University writing program on a Wallace Stegner Fellowship. Her r publications include a memoir, PERSIAN GIRLS (Penguin), four novels, JUMPING OVER FIRE (City Lights), FOREIGNER (W.W. Norton), MARRIED TO A STRANGER (E.P.Dutton), CROWD OF SORROWS, a novella, (Kindle Singles), a short story collection,Veils (City Lights). Her individual short stories have appeared in many magazines, including Solstice Literary Magazine, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Humanities Review, Redbook, Shenandoah. One of her stories was adopted by Symphony Space, “Selected Shorts,” and was aired on NPR’s around the country and three stories were nominated for Pushcart Prize. Her work has received favorable reviews in major magazines and newspapers and translated into Portuguese, Polish, Italian, Dutch, German, Czech, Arabic, and Persian. She has been interviewed in NPR stations such as Fresh Air (Terry Gross), Poets and Writers magazine, Writers Chronicle. She has written reviews and essays for New York Times, Newsday, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. Other grants and awards she has received include the Bennet Cerf Award, PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught creative writing at Barnard College, Yale University and at a wide variety of writer’s conferences, including Paris Writers Conference, Geneva Writers Conference, and Yale Writers Conference. She has been judge for several fiction awards and competitions, among them, Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, sponsored by AWP, Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award sponsored by Poets & Writers,Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize, University of Maryland, English Dept, Teichmann Fiction Prize, Barnard College, English Dept. She gives readings and talks at a wide variety of places, including bookstores,  high schools, colleges, libraries. For more please click on her website: website: http://www.nahidrachlin.com

 

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
Iranian American
Prefers to work with: 
Any
Fluent in: 
English, Persian
Born in: 
Abadan, Iran
Raised in: 
Iran and the U.S.
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: May 06, 2019