Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi (born 1983 in Los Angeles) is an Iranian-American writer. She won the 2015 Whiting Award for Fiction and the 2019 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi was born in 1983,^[1] in Los Angeles,^[2] to an Iranian mother and British father.^[3] She spent much of her childhood in Iran and Spain but also lived in the United States, Scotland, and the United Arab Emirates.^[2] She studied Latin American studies and creative writing at the University of California, San Diego, then completed her Master of Fine Arts in fiction at Brown University.^[4] She speaks four languages.^[2]

In 2012, Van der Vliet Oloomi published her first novel, Fra Keeler.

In 2015, she was honored as one of the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35^[5] and won the Whiting Award for Fiction.^[6]

Her second book, the unconventional bildungsroman Call Me Zebra,^[7] won the 2019 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.^[5] According to the judges, the novel "is a library within a library, a Borges-esque labyrinth of references from all cultures and all walks of life".^[6] Call Me Zebra also received the John Gardner Award and was longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award.^[5]

Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, Guernica, Bomb, Los Angeles Review of Books^[5] and The New York Times, among others.^[4] It has been translated into Italian, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, and Romanian.^[8]

In addition to writing, Van der Vliet Oloomi is an associate professor of English at University of Notre Dame.^[2][3] She also founded "Literatures of Annihilation, Exile & Resistance, a lecture series sponsored by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame that brings together Middle Eastern/Southwest Asian and North African writers and artists."^[5]

Van der Vliet Oloomi has received fellowships through the Fulbright Program, MacDowell, and Art Omi.^[5][8]

In 2015, the National Book Foundation selected Van der Vliet Oloomi for their annual "5 Under 35" honor.^[5][9]

Over twenty publications named Call Me Zebra one of the best books of 2019.^[5]

Her short story "It Is What It Is" was included in The Best American Short Stories 2023.

• Fra Keeler. Dorothy. 2012. ISBN 9780984469345.^[12]
• Call Me Zebra. Mariner Books. 2018. ISBN 9780544944602.^{[13][14][15][16][17]}
• Savage Tongues. Mariner Books. 2021. ISBN 9780358315063.^{[18][19][20][21]}