Dewaine Farria
Photo by Iranafarriaphotography.com
Bio
As a Marine, Dewaine Farria served in Jordan and Ukraine. Besides his stint in the military, Farria spent most of his professional life in the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), with assignments in the North Caucasus, Kenya, Somalia, and Occupied Palestine. Farria was awarded UNDSS’s Bravery Award for his actions during an attack on a UN compound in Mogadishu in June 2013. He presently supervises field security for the Asian Development Bank from the organization’s headquarters in Manila. He holds an MA in international relations from the University of Oklahoma and an MFA in creative writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Farria’s writing has appeared in Literary Hub, the New York Times, Rumpus, the Southern Humanities Review, CRAFT, War on the Rocks, and the anthology Our Best War Stories. Tobias Wolff selected his novel Revolutions of All Colors as the winner of the inaugural Veterans Writing Prize.
Conflict, marginalization, and identity feature prominently in my work.
After a stint as a Marine guard at the U.S. embassies in Kyiv and Amman, I ended up as a United Nations Field Security Officer. During my ten-years with the UN, I managed security risks in some of the most challenging settings on the planet—from shelter projects in Chechnya, to a polio vaccination campaign in Somalia, to safeguarding schools and clinics throughout Occupied Palestine. In my present role at the Asian Development Bank, I am responsible for the safety and security of the organization’s field offices—including operations in Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, and the Mindanao region of the Philippines.
As a writer, I am most drawn to stories of the marginalized, dispossessed, and disaffected. Having spent much of my adult life outside of the United States, I see my country’s position in the world as at once unique, ludicrous, necessary, brutal, beautiful, and heartbreakingly tragic. No matter how layered my allegiances become, Americanness—with all its stubborn resistance to simple definitions—remains inextricably linked to my writing.
By turns, my vocation has both fed and strangled my art. This award creates space to eat and breathe. For this, I am thankful to the U.S. government and plan to take full advantage.