Saïd Sayrafiezadeh (born 1968) is an American memoirist, playwright and fiction writer living in New York City. He won a 2010

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Mrs. (American English) or Mrs (British English; standard E ...

for his memoir, ''When Skateboards Will Be Free''. He is the author of two story collections, ''American Estrangement'' (2021) and ''Brief Encounters With the Enemy,'' which was short-listed for the 2014 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut fiction. He serves on the board of directors for the

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

Early life and education

Sayrafiezadeh was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York, to an Iranian father, Mahmoud Sayrafiezadeh, and an American Jewish mother, Martha Harris, both of whom were members of the Socialist Workers Party. He was raised in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

. His maternal uncle was the novelist Mark Harris. He lives in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He attended the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

, but dropped out his senior year.

Work

Sayrafiezadeh has published essays and short stories in a number of outlets, including ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

'', and ''

McSweeney's McSweeney's Publishing is an American non-profit publishing house founded by Dave Eggers in 1998 and headquartered in San Francisco. Initially publishing the literary journal'' Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', the company has moved to n ...

''. His plays include ''New York is Bleeding, Autobiography of a Terrorist, All Fall Away,'' and ''Long Dream in Summer''. They have been produced or read at

South Coast Repertory South Coast Repertory (SCR) is a professional theatre company located in Costa Mesa, California. Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory, founded in 1964 by David Emmes and Martin Benson, is led by Artistic Director David Ivers and Managing Direc ...

New York Theatre Workshop __NOTOC__ New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) is an Off-Broadway theatre noted for its productions of new works. Located at 79 4th Street (Manhattan), East 4th Street between Second Avenue (Manhattan), Second Avenue and Bowery in the East Village, ...

, The

Humana Festival of New American Plays Humana Festival of New American Plays is an internationally renowned festival that celebrates the contemporary American playwright. Produced annually in Louisville, Kentucky by Actors Theatre of Louisville, this festival showcases new theatrica ...

, and at The Sundance Theatre Lab. Sayrafiezadeh has also published a memoir about his childhood in the Socialist Workers Party. He has published two short story collections, ''Brief Encounters with the Enemy'' in 2013 and ''American Estrangement'' in 2021. The latter includes "Audition", a story based on his experiences with drug addiction and as an aspiring actor.

Bibliography

Short fiction

;Collections * * ;Stories * * * * * * *

Essays and reporting

* * * * * *

Memoirs

References

External links

Author's websiteProfile at The Whiting Foundation
20th-century American Jews American writers of Iranian descent 1968 births Living people The New Yorker people Writers from Pittsburgh American male dramatists and playwrights American dramatists and playwrights 21st-century American Jews {{US-playwright-stub