About Sanjena Sathian

Sanjena Sathian is the author of GOLD DIGGERS, which was named a Top 10 Best Book of 2021 by the Washington Post, a Best Book of 2021 by NPR and Amazon, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She is working on the TV adaptation with Mindy Kaling’s production company, Kaling International. Her second novel is forthcoming from Penguin Press.

Her short fiction appears in The Atlantic, Conjunctions, Boulevard, The Southern Humanities Review, Salt Hill Journal, and more, and is anthologized in the Best American Short Stories 2022. She’s written nonfiction for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Drift, Lithub, and more.

Between 2022 and 2024, she will be a Fiction Fellow at Emory University.

She was raised in Georgia by South Indian immigrant parents, and holds a BA from Yale University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Education

BA in English Literature, Yale University
MFA in Creative Writing, University of Iowa

Professional Fields

Work History

Asia Editor/Correspondent, OZY Media
Health Reporter, The Boston Globe
Deputy Editor, OZY Media

Milestones and Recognition

Finalist, South Asian Journalists' Association, Outstanding Work By a Journalist in North America, 2017
Finalist, South Asian Journalists' Association, Best Arts & Culture Reporting, 2017
Clarion Writers' Workshop for the top 18 emerging Science Fiction/Fantasy writers
Yale College's Elmore A. Willets Prize for Excellence in Fiction Writing
Yale College's John Hubbard Curtis Prize for Excellence in English
Kingsley Trust Fellowship
Winner of the Tournament of Champions and the Baker Award
"Dream City and the Imagined 'We': Modern Publics in Zadie Smith's London," Columbia Journal of Literary Studies