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Best-selling Iranian author to speak at Bernhard

Feb. 20, 2009

KALAMAZOO--Best-selling Iranian author Firoozeh Dumas will share an evening of humor and unique commentary on multicultural issues in America during a visit Thursday, Feb. 26, to the campus of Western Michigan University.

Sponsored by the Graduate Student Advisory Committee and Western Student Association, "An Evening With Firoozeh Dumas" is scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m. in the North Ballroom of the Bernhard Center. Light refreshments will be served before her talk at 7 p.m. The event is open to the public without charge, but seating is limited, so those attending should arrive early.

Dumas is the best-selling author of "Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America" and "Laughing Without an Accent." She has spent the past five years traveling the country to share her stories.

Born in Abadan, Iran, she moved in the 1970s to Southern California with her family. Dumas grew up listening to her father, a former Fulbright Scholar, recount colorful stories of his life in both Iran and America. In 2001, she wrote "Funny in Farsi," which was on the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times bestseller lists, was a finalist for several prestigious national and local awards and is used in many junior and senior high schools and universities.

Her commentaries have been broadcast on National Public Radio and published in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle Magazine and Lifetime Magazine. In April 2005, her one-woman show, "Laughing Without an Accent" opened in Northern California.

She has spoken at conferences, schools, churches, Jewish Temples and Islamic centers across the country. Her latest memoir, "Laughing without an Accent," was published in May 2008.

For more information, visit the WMU Graduate Student Advisory Committee online, e-mail gsac@wmich.edu or call (269) 387-8207.

Media contact: Deanne Molinari, (269) 387-8400, deanne.molinari@wmich.edu

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