An Evening with Maz Jobrani and Maryam Ala Amjadi

Join BMI’s City of Asylum Fellow Maryam Ala Amjadi in a conversation with actor, author, and comedian Maz Jobrani. They’ll discuss their experiences moving through both Iranian and American cultures, and explore how humor can help us move through the world.

Maz Jobrani is a globally renowned comedian and actor who performs to packed audiences around the world. Jobrani is known for his role as the lovable “Fawz” on CBS’s Superior Donuts and has appeared on hit shows including Grey’s Anatomy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Shameless, and Last Man Standing. He’s a regular on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Late Late Show with James Corden. His stand-up specials include Immigrant on Netflix and several on Showtime. He’s performed at the White House, hosted the International Emmys, and was a founding member of the Axis of Evil tour. Maz is also a bestselling author, TED speaker, and regular panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me.

Maryam Ala Amjadi is an Iranian writer, translator, and researcher. She is the author of two poetry collections, a poetry chapbook, and the translator of a selection of Raymond Carver’s poems into Persian. She won the ‘Young Generation Poet’ Prize in the inaugural Yinchuan International Poetry Festival in China and was a writer-in-residence at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Her short story “The Ice Seller of Hell” won the 2024 Elizabeth Alexander Award and will be published in the Meridians journal (Duke University Press). Ala Amjadi was previously a writer for the Tehran Times Daily, where she founded and wrote a weekly page dedicated to the socio-cultural nuances of Iran. In 2017, she earned a joint PhD in interdisciplinary literary studies as an Erasmus Mundus fellow from Kent (UK) and Porto (Portugal) universities. Her poems and translations of contemporary Iranian poets have been anthologized internationally, and her poetry has been translated into multiple languages, including Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and Hindi. Her latest book, Where Is the Mouth of That Word? (Selected Poems) was published by Poetrywala in 2022.

Parking/getting there: Parking on UNLV’s campus is free and open to all after 7pm. The UNLV Student Union is located off of Maryland Parkway and East Harmon Ave between the Greenspun Hall and Flora Dungan Humanities buildings. Parking Lot D is closest to the Student Union.

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