Firoozeh Dumas

In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father’s glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since.

Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas’s wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot.

In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies? a complete mystery), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey? an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozeh’s parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don’t get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi).

Above all, this is an unforgettable story of identity, discovery, and the power of family love. It is a book that will leave us all laughing - without an accent.

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Bio

Firoozeh Dumas was born in Abadan, Iran and moved to Whittier, California at the age of seven. After a two-year stay, she and her family moved back to Iran and lived in Ahvaz and Tehran. Two years later, they moved back to Whittier, then to Newport Beach. Firoozeh then attended UC Berkeley where she met and married a Frenchman.

Firoozeh grew up listening to her father, a former Fulbright Scholar, recount the many colorful stories of his life. In 2001, with no prior writing experience, Firoozeh decided to write her stories as a gift for her children. Random House published these stories in 2003. Funny in Farsi was on the SF Chronicle and LA Times bestseller lists and was a finalist for the PEN/USA award in 2004 and a finalist in 2005 for an Audie Award for best audio book. She lost to Bob Dylan. She was also a finalist for the prestigious Thurber Prize for American Humor, the first Middle Eastern woman ever to receive this honor. Unfortunately, she lost that one to Jon Stewart. Even though, as Firoozeh’s dad likes to point out, Jon Stewart wrote his book with a team of writers, while Firoozeh wrote hers, alone, before her children woke up for school.

Critics and readers of all ages have loved her stories. Jimmy Carter called Funny in Farsi, A humorous and introspective chronicle of a life filled with love of family, country and heritage. Orange County Reads One Book selected Funny in Farsi for Community Reads 2004, the City of Whittier in 2005, Cape Ann, MA in 2006, Palo Alto and Berkeley in 2006, and Dayton, Ohio and Bensensille, Illinois in 2008. Funny in Farsi is now on the California Recommended Reading List and is used in many junior high, high schools and universities. You may have also heard Firoozeh’s commentaries on NPR or read her pieces in the NY Times, LA Times, SF Chronicle Magazine, or Lifetime Magazine.

For the past four years, Firoozeh has traveled the country reminding us that our commonalities far outweigh our differences and doing so with humor. She has spoken in conferences, schools, universities, churches, Jewish Temples and Islamic centers. Her travels have taken her from the East Coast to the West Coast, from Harvard University to UCLA. Everywhere she has gone, audiences have embraced her message of shared humanity and invited her back for more.

The Persian version of Funny in Farsi is currently one of the bestselling books in Iran. Firoozeh’s next book, Laughing Without an Accent, a series of autobiographical essays, will be published by Random House in May 2008. ABC is currently developing a sitcom based on Funny in Farsi.

Her book was selected by Random House as one of their six hottest books for the summer of 2003. It has received many glowing reviews and was recently endorsed by Jimmy Carter, who called it “A humorous and introspective chronicle of a life filled with love—of family, country, and heritage.” In addition, Firoozeh has also read her stories on National Public Radio in California and has done commentary for Morning Edition.