Bahiyyih Nakhjavani
Bahiyyih Nakhjavani
Bahiyyih Nakhjavani was born in Iran, raised in Uganda, and educated in the United Kingdom and the United States. She received her undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of York in the UK and completed her doctorate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the US. She has also been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Liège in Belgium. Over four decades of teaching literature and creative writing, she has combined scholarly insight with narrative imagination. She is the author of several acclaimed novels, including The Saddlebag (Bloomsbury), Paper (Bloomsbury), Us & Them (Stanford University Press), and The Woman Who Read Too Much, published in English by Stanford University Press (Redwood Press) in 2015. Her fiction — praised for its lyrical depth and historical insight — has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Greek, Turkish, Hebrew, Russian, and Korean, reflecting a wide international readership. The Woman Who Read Too Much was notably recognized in France as one of the best books of the year shortly after its first European editions appeared. She is also the co-author of Equality for Women = Prosperity for All (St. Martin’s Press), a work that explores the connection between gender equality and economic development. Her recent work includes translating and editing the memoirs of prisoner of conscience Mahvash Sabet, Open Wide the Doors, to be published in 2026 by Oneworld in the UK and Simon & Schuster in the US. Bahiyyih Nakhjavani currently lives in France and narrates audio recordings of classic literature in English for WholeReader, an immersive reading program for all ages.