Iranian American Sanaz Toossi Wins Pulitzer for Drama

Iranian American author Sanaz Toossi has won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play "English."

The Pulitzer committee described Toossi's work as “a quietly powerful play about four Iranian adults preparing for an English-language exam in a storefront school near Tehran, where family separations and travel restrictions drive them to learn a new language that may alter their identities and also represent a new life.”

This prize includes a $15,000 award.

Toossi is the daughter of Iranian immigrants who settled in the United States after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and grew up in the state of California.

The prestigious Pulitzer Prize is awarded annually by Columbia University in New York to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to journalism, literature, music and drama in the United States.

In 1980, the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography was awarded to Iranian photographer Jahangir Razmi.