Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1990, Parwana Fayyaz was raised in Quetta, Pakistan. She earned her BA in 2015, with a major in comparative literature (with honors) and a minor in creative writing (poetry) under the supervision of late Eavan Boland, and her MA in religious studies in 2016 from Stanford University. She then moved to Cambridge University to pursue a PhD in Persian Studies at Trinity College and completed her thesis in 2020. She currently holds a junior research fellowship as the Carmen Blacker Fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge University.