Laleh Khadivi

Laleh Khadivi

Associate Professor

Department Chair
Full-Time Faculty
Socials

Biography

Laleh Khadivi is the author of The Kurdish Trilogy which includes The Age of Orphans (2009), The Walking (2013), and A Good Country (2017), a New York Times Editors Choice.

Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Times, among others.

Her new novel, Female Life on Planet Earth (Ecco Harper Collins) and its sister community film project, Female Lives on Planet Earth, debut in September of 2026.

Expertise

  • Fiction
  • Film
  • Teaching creative writing

Education

  • MFA Mills College

Awards & Distinctions

  • The Stein Fiction Fellowship, Stanford University (2023)

  • National Endowment for the Arts Award

  • Barnes and Noble Discover New Writer Award

  • Whiting Award

  • Pushcart Prize

  • Emory Fiction Fellowship

  • Wisconsin Fiction Fellowship

Selected Publications

  • The Walking, A Good Country and Female Life on Planet Earth (forthcoming September 2026)

  • Khadivi, L. (2017). A Good CountryNew York: Bloomsbury USA

  • Khadivi, L. (2013). The Walking. New York: Bloomsbury USA

  • Khadivi, L. (2009). The Age of Orphans. London: Bloomsbury Publishing