A former refugee from Iran, Dina is the author of two critically acclaimed narrative nonfiction books Who Gets Believed (2023) and the ground-breaking and much praised The Ungrateful Refugee (2019), as well as two previous novels. The Ungrateful Refugee (2019), won Germany’s prestigious Geschwister Scholl Preis, and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Elle Grand Prix Des Lectrices, and called by The Observer “a work of astonishing insistent importance.” Her work is published in 20+ countries and translated into 14 languages, with essays and stories in The New York Times Magazine, NYT Book Review, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Best American Short Stories, and many other publications. Her acclaimed Guardian Long Reads are among the most widely read and anthologized of the column, and are taught in school curricula across Europe and the U.S.
Dina was a 2019-2020 fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas & Imagination in Paris and a 2020 fellow at the American Library in Paris, a winner of a National Endowment for the Arts literature grant, the UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, and a finalist for the Rome Prize. Her essays and stories on displacement and home are taught in schools across Europe and the US. Dina holds an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (2013), and MBA (2006) and M.Ed (2007) from Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Arts (Magna Cum Laude) in Economics from Princeton University (2001). She is now a Reader (permanent faculty) in the School of English at the University of St Andrews. Dina is a trustee of Refugee Support Europe and Hostnation.