Yasmin Khan (writer)

For other uses, see Yasmin Khan (disambiguation).

Yasmin Khan
Born1981 (age 42–43)
London, England
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Writer, broadcaster, campaigner

Yasmin Khan is a British author, broadcaster and human rights campaigner.[1][2] Her work covers food, travel and politics and her critically acclaimed books, The Saffron Tales and Zaitoun, use everyday stories to challenge stereotypes of the Middle East.[3]

After earning a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sheffield and a Master of Science in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics, Khan went on to work as a campaigner for numerous British charities and human rights groups including INQUEST and War on Want.

In 2013, she launched a Kickstarter project[4] to create a food and travel book that would share recipes and stories from Iran, the country of her mother's birth. This project eventually became Khan's debut book, The Saffron Tales: Recipes and stories from the Persian kitchen, published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2016, and described by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BBC Food Programme as one of the best cookbooks of the year.[5][6][7]

Khan's second book Zaitoun: Recipes and Stories From the Palestinian Kitchen, chronicles her culinary travels through Palestinian kitchens, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It was published in the UK in 2018 by Bloomsbury and was called one of the best cookbooks of the year by The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent and the BBC Food Programme.[8][9][10][11] It was published in the US in 2019 by W.W. Norton and has been received with much critical acclaim.[1][12]

Khan has worked as a presenter for BBC Radio 4's The Food Programme[13] and CNN/Roads and Kingdoms' series The Perfect Dish with Anthony Bourdain.[14] She is a regular media commentator, having appeared on flagship programmes such as Newsnight, the Today programme[which?] and Woman's Hour, and has written for a variety of publications, including The Guardian, the Telegraph,[which?] the New Statesman, Saveur, Afar, Food52 and Roads and Kingdoms.

Yasmin has delivered motivational speeches around the world on issues relating to activism and social change, human rights in the Middle East, and burnout and career change.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ a b Mayukh Sen (4 February 2019). "A Writer Describes Palestinian Cuisine, and the World Around It". The New York Times. p. D1. Archived from the original on 19 August 2019. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
  2. ^ "Yasmin Khan's Palestinian recipes: hummus, kefte and pomegranate cake". The Guardian. 15 July 2018. Archived from the original on 26 August 2019. Retrieved 25 August 2019. Still, when Khan returned for research trips for Zaitoun (Arabic for 'olive tree'), she was shocked by how much the situation had deteriorated since her first visit in 2009. 'It's so much more dire than when I used to work on it,' she says. 'I think history is going to look back on what's happened to Palestinians in the last century with…' she pauses, choosing her words, 'with a lot of shame, actually.'
  3. ^ Rebecca Flint Marx (6 February 2019). "What is Palestinian cooking? Yasmin Khan's new book will show you". The Guardian.
  4. ^ Khan, Yasmin (11 September 2019). "The Saffron Tales: Recipes from the Persian Kitchen Kickstarter". Kickstarter.
  5. ^ Laura Shapiro (30 November 2016). "The Brooklyn to Kentucky to Iran, Cookbooks for every taste". The New York Times.
  6. ^ Eugenia Bone (23 November 2016). "What to Give: Food Books". Wall Street Journal.
  7. ^ "The Food Programme: Cookbooks of 2016". BBC News. 28 November 2016.
  8. ^ Allardice, Lisa (1 December 2018). "Guardian best books of 2018". The Guardian.
  9. ^ Molly Tait-Hyland (16 December 2018). "The 20 best food books of 2018". The Guardian.
  10. ^ Stacey Smith (25 September 2018). "20 best new cookbooks of 2018". The Independent. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022.
  11. ^ "Cookbooks of 2018". BBC News. 3 December 2018.
  12. ^ Bri Kovan (5 February 2019). "Breaking Bread With Zaitoun Author Yasmin Khan: With her second cookbook, the London activist picks up the torch from Anthony Bourdain". Elle magazine. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 25 August 2019. Khan, 37, entered the food world in roundabout fashion. She spent the aughts as a London activist, lobbying both UK parliamentarians and laymen about human-rights abuses in the Middle East.
  13. ^ "Ice Cream Nation". BBC News. 9 September 2019.
  14. ^ "The Perfect Dish". CNN. 10 October 2017.