“There’s such warmth to Dumas’ writing that it invites the reader to pull up a seat at her table and smile right along with her at the quirks of her family and Iranians and Americans in general.”
—Booklist
“Dumas is one of those rare people: a naturally gifted storyteller.”
—Alexander McCall Smith
“Laughing Without an Accent is written . . . as if Dumas were sharing a cup of coffee with her reader as she relates her comic tales. . . . Firoozeh Dumas exudes undeniable charm [as she] reveals a zeal for culture—both new and old—and the enduring bonds of a family filled with outsize personalities.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“[Dumas is] like a blend of Anne Lamott and Erma Bombeck.”
—Bust
“Humorous without being sentimental, [Dumas] speaks to the American experience.”
—The Plain Dealer
Memoir Review: Laughing Without an Accent Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad By Lee Thomas, San Francisco Chronicle (Complete review)
Funny again, in English Palo Alto Weekly (Complete review)
NPR Interview, June 21, 2008
Writer Firoozeh Dumas talks with Scott Simon about her new memoir, Laughing Without an Accent. It’s a collection of humorous essays about her life as the daughter of Iranian immigrants, and about some the colorful characters in her extended family.
NPR: AROUND THE NATION, A Personal Look Back at the Iranian Hostage Crisis, November 3, 2007
Iranian-American Firoozeh Dumas was a teenager living in Southern California at the time when the Iranian revolution happened, and the hostage crisis changed her life. A few weeks ago, she met one of the former hostages. Kathryn Koob had been a cultural officer at the United States Embassy in Tehran.