People
Ayana Mathis
Profile
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Ayana Mathis is a novelist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and author of The Unsettled (2023). She teaches in the MFA Program at Hunter College in New York City and is also enrolled in Union Theological Seminary. Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop (where she later taught) and a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (2012), her first novel, was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, an NPR Best Book of the Year, and a selection for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club 2.0. She has been recognized with Princeton University's Hodder Fellowship, an American Academy in Berlin fellowship, and McSweeney's inaugural Gabe Hudson Prize. She contributed to the New Yorker's memorial coverage of Nelson Mandela, and her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Financial Times, and the Atlantic.