Pegah Ouji: Glimpsing the Chosen Tongue through a Keyhole

Pegah Ouji is an Iranian American writer who writes in Farsi and English. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Joyland, Epiphany, Fugue, Split Lip among others. She has been a scholarship recipient from Kundiman, Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute, Hudson Valley Writer's Center, Literary Arts, Grub Street, and Shipman Agency. She was a 2024 Emerging Writer Fellow at Smokelong Quarterly. She is currently an editorial fellow at Roots, Wounds, Words where she is working on an anthology of creative work by BIPOC justice-involved and impacted artists. We discussed the challenges Pegah encountered as an outsider in America, as well as the complexities of language and Pegah's desire to create a space that blends both Farsi and English. You can read Pegah's story, Is It Too Late? here.