My debut novel, The Toss of a Lemon, was published in eight countries, a bestseller in three, and a finalist for the Commonwealth (Regional) First Book Prize, the Amazon.ca First Novel Prize and the Pen Center USA Fiction Prize. The second novel, The Ever After of Ashwin Rao, was published in Canada, the USA, India and Australia. In Canada, it was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a national bestseller. In 2020, the New York Review Books published my first book-length translation (I work from Brazilian Portuguese), the novel São Bernardo, by the late, lauded Brazilian novelist Graciliano Ramos, in their Classics series. It was runner-up for the UK Society of Authors’ TA First Translation Prize and shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. My most recent book is Like Every Form of Love: A Memoir of Friendship and True Crime, now available in Canada and the US.
My short fiction has been published in such venues as Granta and The Boston Review. I’ve also published personal essays, reviews, cultural journalism and short translations, and have several produced plays. I’m the grateful recipient of grants from the US National Endowment for the Arts, the Canada Council for the Arts and many others, as well as fellowships at artists’ residencies such as Sacatar Brazil and the MacDowell Colony.
Forthcoming books include a translation of Where We Stand, by Djamila Ribeiro, already named one of LitHub’s most anticipated books for 2024, and a novel, The Charterhouse of Padma.
Professor of fiction-writing, translation and international literature in the Programs in Creative Writing and Translation at the University of Arkansas–Fayetteville, I’m happy to have served on juries for literary awards in Canada and the US, including the Governor General’s Award, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Neustadt Prize, and others. I’ve additionally been guest faculty in fiction for the Banff Center, the Vermont Studio Center, Kundiman, the Bread Loaf Conferences, and elsewhere. Yes, it’s all just as fun as it sounds.
Canadian by birth and temperament, I now live on a hilltop in Arkansas with the poet and translator Geoffrey Brock, our kids, and a rotating array of parents and pets.