Katayoun was born in Iran, raised in Germany and lives in the UK. She studied Social Anthropology at F.U. Berlin; the School of Oriental and African Studies and University College London, before changing direction and working in adolescent mental health. Training as an intercultural psychoanalytic psychotherapist stimulated an interest in cross-cultural attitudes to mental health. Eventually fieldwork for a PhD in medical anthropology on intercultural negotiation in mental health care led her to the Navajo Nation in the Southwestern United States.
Out of her time in the Southwest Quixotic cop Franz Kafka, all good intentions and a questionable skill-set, was born. Katayoun’s debut novel ‘The Quality of Mercy’, an homage to the Diné (Navajo) and the unique Diné sense of humour, won the 2016 Global Leapfrog Fiction Contest, forming the first volume of The Milagro Mysteries.
Katayoun is currently working on Milagro Mystery # 4 ‘Vision Quest’.
If you are interested in what moves and inspires me as a writer, here’s a link to an interview with Mark Stevens, who asked all the right questions: