Jasmin Darznik

Jasmin Darznik is a writer, scholar, and educator whose work explores literature, identity, migration, and women’s lives. She is the author of The Good Daughter, Song of a Captive Bird, and The Bohemians, and her forthcoming novel, American Goddess: A Novel of Rita Hayworth, will be published by Ballantine/Random House in 2027. Her essays and nonfiction have appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post Magazine, Literary Hub, and others. Darznik holds a PhD and MA in English Literature from Princeton University, an MFA in Fiction from Bennington College, a JD from the University of California, San Francisco, and a BA from UCLA. She has taught at institutions including California College of the Arts, the University of San Francisco, Washington and Lee University, and the University of Virginia, and has received numerous literary and academic honors.

• Creative writing
• Fiction and creative nonfiction
• Historical fiction
• Literature and human rights

• Literature and human rights
• Immigrant and transnational literature
• Women’s literature and cultural history

• Princeton University, PhD in English Literature, 2007
• Princeton University, MA in English Literature, 2003
• Bennington College Writing Seminars, MFA in Fiction, 2014
• University of California, San Francisco, JD, 1996
• University of California, Los Angeles, BA in English and German, magna cum laude, 1994

• Department Chair, MFA Program in Writing, California College of the Arts (2022-2026)
• Associate Professor, Writing and Literature, California College of the Arts (2019–2026)
• Adjunct Professor, Writing and Literature, California College of the Arts (2013–2017)
• Assistant Professor of English, Washington and Lee University (2009–2014)
• Visiting Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of Virginia (Fall 2009)
• Assistant Instructor, Department of English, Princeton University (2003–2004)

• Outstanding Faculty Award, State Council for Higher Education for Virginia
• University of Virginia-Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Fellowship
• Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, Longlist, Song of a Captive Bird
• William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, Shortlist
• Steinbeck Fellowship

• American Goddess: A Novel of Rita Hayworth, Ballantine/Random House, forthcoming 2027
• The Bohemians, Random House/Ballantine, 2021
• Song of a Captive Bird, Random House/Ballantine, 2018
• The Good Daughter, Grand Central Publishing, 2011