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Thu, Feb 26, 2026 5:30pm–7:00pm

Zell Visiting Writers Series: Writer Jamil Kochai and Q&A

Thu, Feb 26, 2026
5:30pm–7:00pm
Helmut Stern Auditorium

Join us in welcoming writer Jamil Kochai for a reading and Q+A as part of the Zell Visiting Writers Series, presented by the Helen Zell Writer’s Program in partnership with UMMA, with support from the Department of English Language & Literature.

Kochai is the author of The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories, a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award and a winner of the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the 2023 Clark Fiction Prize.

Zell Visiting Writers Series readings and Q&As are free and open to the public. This session will be in-person only. Seats are offered on a first come, first served basis; please arrive early to secure a spot.

For any questions about the event or to share accommodation needs, please email kimjulie@umich.edu — we are eager to help ensure this event is inclusive to you.

Free and open to the public, no registration required.

Headshot of Jamil Jan Kochai

More About
Jamil Jan Kochai

Jamil Jan Kochai is the author of The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories, a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award and a winner of the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the 2023 Clark Fiction Prize. His debut novel 99 Nights in Logar won John C. Zacharis First Book Award. Kochai was born in an Afghan refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, but his family originally hails from Logar, Afghanistan. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and The Best American Short Stories. Kochai was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and a Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He teaches creative writing at Princeton University.

SUPPORT

The Zell Visiting Writers Series is a reading series presented by the Helen Zell Writers’ Program in partnership with the University of Michigan Museum of Art, with support from the Department of English Language & Literature, the Office of the Vice President for Research, and Janey Lack.