Ali Eteraz

I grew up in the Caribbean, South Asia, and the American South. My debut novel, NATIVE BELIEVER, is due out via Akashic, on May 3, 2016. Booklist calls it "[A] poignant and profoundly funny first novel....Eteraz combines masterful storytelling with intelligent commentary to create a nuanced work of social and political art."

Previously, I wrote the short story collection FALSIPEDIES AND FIBSIENNES (Guernica Ed. 2014). Other stories have appeared in storySouth, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Forge Journal. In 2014, my story, Iron Bowl, was long-listed for The Million Writers Award.

I am the author of the critically acclaimed memoir CHILDREN OF DUST (HarperCollins, 2009). It was selected as a New Statesman Book of the Year and was featured on PBS with Tavis Smiley, NPR with Terry Gross, C-SPAN2, and numerous international outlets. O, The Oprah Magazine, called it “a picaresque journey” and the book was long-listed for the Asian American Writer’s Workshop Award.

I am an accomplished essayist and has been spotlighted by Time Magazine and Pageturner, the literary blog of the New Yorker. In 2014, I won the 3 Quarks Daily Arts & Literature Prize judged by novelist Mohsin Hamid. In 2015, I served as an art consultant to Jenny Holzer, for a permanent art installation in Qatar.

I am a member of the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto.