Jamil Jan Kochai

Jamil Jan Kochai (born 1992) is an Afghan-American writer who was born in Peshawar, Pakistan and resides in Sacramento, California. He is a O. Henry Award winner with two published books of fiction.

Early life and education Kochai was born in Pakistan and brought to the United States as a baby, and was raised in California. His first language is Pashto and his family also speaks Persian. After 9/11, he was bullied, and at 12, his family traveled to Afghanistan, which served as inspiration for his first book.

While growing up in West Sacramento, California, a teacher at River City High School encouraged him to take a creative writing class, leading him into fiction. He continued to write as he worked toward a bachelor's degree at California State University, Sacramento, majoring in English. The debut won the John C. Zacharis First Book Award from Ploughshares. It was reviewed as "funny" and "razor-sharp" with a "singular, resonant voice" by Dina Nayeri in The New York Times Book Review and called it "charming and unpredictable" by The Guardian, as well as "phenomenal" by Mohammed Hanif. It was named a book to read by BuzzFeed, Time, The New Yorker, and New York, and Harper's Magazine wrote that the "funny" and "surreal" book is "driven by a profusion of tales within tales."

Kochai stated that Islamic texts and literature were an important influence on the book. In an interview with The New Yorker, he stated that the title story, published in the magazine after being inspired by a headline from The Onion, represents many themes in the collection.

In 2023, he announced that he would begin a job as assistant professor at Princeton University.

His stories have been published in Ploughshares, A Public Space, and The Sewanee Review.