Amir Davari

MIR DAVARI
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ABOUT ME

Amir Davari Bio
The initial spark behind my storytelling comes from a tumultuous early childhood. I was raised by parents who participated in the Iranian Revolution of 1979, in the midst of the horrors of an eight-year war between Iraq and Iran. I remember rations and nightly bombing raids that city residents into bunkers in their pajamas. In 1987, one year before Ayatollah Khomeini drank the “poisoned chalice” and signed a peace treaty with Saddam Hussein, my family and I escaped the tumult and immigrated to California. I was five years old.

As an undocumented first-generation Persian-American, my formative years were a balancing act between maintaining ethnic identity and assimilating to a new home. I was raised in a predominantly Black neighborhood, an experience that factors significantly in the diversity of characters in my stories. All the while, my politically driven parents instilled an unrelenting social ethic. That ethic shapes all my work, be it comedy or drama. I was 11 years old when the LA Rebellion of 1992 (popularly known as the Los Angeles riots) gripped the attentions of television viewers and the streets of my newly embraced hometown. They took me my younger brother to ground zero on Crenshaw Boulevard. Watching the burning buildings and angry people fill the streets, to my own surprise, I felt fearless. Having eccentric parents afford its own, eccentric, advantages.

These unique experiences bring a distinct voice to my writing. That voice speaks not just from my own ethnic community’s standpoint, but also from the standpoints of other people of color who have experience the racial challenges afflicting American society today. Extraordinary events serve as a catalyst for a writer to create an extraordinary story. This basic, almost cliched precept, is the modus operandi of my writing. When faced with hot button social issues considered taboo or off-limits, I am fearless. A great writer knows how to avoid hindrances to telling their stories. Fearless writing, the kind I admire and espouse, produces memorable characters and solid story structures.