Nazila Fathi is a journalist and commentator on Iran and the author of The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran (The Guardian, Vogue and Foreign Policy Association named The Lonely War the best non-fiction of 2014). She reported out of Iran for The New York Times for nearly two decades until 2009 when government threats forced her to leave the country. She wrote over 2,000 articles for The New York Times and translated History and Documentation of Human Rights in Iran, a book by Noble Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, into English. 

Fathi has written for the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, IMF Finance and Development, as well as Vogue and Marie Claire. She has been a guest speaker on CNN, BBC, CBC and NPR. She was awarded a Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship at Lund University in 2003, Nieman Fellowship for journalism at Harvard in 2010-11, Shorenstein Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School in 2012 and an association at Harvard Belfer Center in 2012-13. 

Fathi’s academic background is in international development and women’s studies. As a hobby, she writes children’s books. My Name is Cyrus and Avicenna, the Father of Modern Medicine are among them.

Contact Information

This individual is a guest contributor but is not an MEI-affiliated expert. We are not able to assist with contact requests.

Download Photo