Originally from Iran, Penn Javdan was born in the grip of a war that killed over a million people.

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As an academic, he couples his personal experience as a refugee with his expertise in political violence to teach and research on competing theories of justice. 

 

As a writer of fiction and film, he writes atmospheric dramas about characters who overcome persecution in the face of big shadows: conspiracies, political power, and dark technology.

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He is a 2025 Sundance Cultural Impact Residency Finalist, a 2024 Academy Nicholl Fellowship quarterfinalist, and has been published in Best Small Fictions 2023, an international anthology where guest editors have included Pulitzer Prize, Pen/Faulkner, and Pen/Malamud award winners. 

 

Currently, he’s completing a novel that crosses the worlds of techno-therapy and social justice.  

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Penn divides his time between Los Angeles and Toronto, but has lived all over: Tehran, Paris, New York City— and maybe someday the moon.