The ungrateful refugee’s voice: an interview with Dina Nayeri

Dina Nayeri is an Iranian-American novelist, essayist, short-story writer, author of two novels and two books of creative nonfiction (Who Gets Believed? 2023, The Ungrateful Refugee 2019), winner of the Geschwister Scholl Preis and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Kirkus Prize, Elle Grand Prix des Lectrices, TEDx speaker, currently a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews (Scotland), a wonderful mother, and one of the most inspiring people everybody of her students, colleagues, readers, and friends are lucky to have around. In this interview, she shares a few words about differences in Eastern and Western cultures, mastering English being a non-native speaker, the importance of reading and her own reading habits, who to trust giving your first drafts to proofread, and she also shares ideas on where to find inspiration as well as how to travel writing-wise properly in order to be truly immersed in a newly visited place, a complete necessity for any aspiring novelist.