Why comedian Shaparak Khorsandi reclaimed her birth name to shed a performative identity
In short: For years, the Iranian-born British comedian performed under the stage name Shappi, a choice she eventually realized was a subconscious attempt to make her foreignness more comfortable for others. By reverting to her full name, Shaparak, she rejected the pressure to assimilate and embraced the complexity of her own identity.
Born in Tehran in 1973, Shaparak Khorsandi moved to London as a child after her father, the satirist Hadi Khorsandi, fled Iran following the 1979 revolution. Her early life in the United Kingdom, marked by the cultural friction of navigating a new language and customs, became a central pillar of her stand-up career. Academics have noted that her comedy often resonates with the experiences of those marked by racial prejudice, while simultaneously challenging the construct of the exotic foreigner often projected by a white imagination.
Khorsandi’s professional evolution reflects a broader struggle with identity and public perception. Early in her career, she adopted the name Shappi, a decision rooted in childhood experiences of having her full name mocked and mispronounced. However, she later identified this as a form of self-censorship, an effort to bend her identity to fit societal expectations. This theme of navigating expectations extends to her literary work; when her 2016 novel Nina is Not OK was nominated for a prize for minority ethnic writers, she requested its removal, arguing that she had finally written something not centered on identity, only to be categorized by her ethnicity once again.
Beyond the stage and page, Khorsandi has been a vocal advocate for humanism, serving as president of Humanists UK from 2016 to 2019. Her recent work, including her 2023 autobiography Scatter Brain, addresses her late-in-life diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder at age 47. By weaving together her experiences as a single mother, a political campaigner, and a woman navigating the complexities of the British media landscape, Khorsandi continues to use her platform to deconstruct the labels placed upon her, moving from the performative to the deeply personal.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Shaparak Khorsandi
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