“Munaweera’s prose is visceral and indelible, devastatingly beautiful-reminiscent of the glorious writings of Louise Erdrich, Amy Tan and Alice Walker, who also find ways to truth-tell through fiction.”
- Huffington Post
What Lies Between Us
Nayomi Munaweera’s second novel, What Lies Between Us, a book about a Sri Lanka-American mother who commits an unspeakable crime, was hailed as one of the most exciting literary releases of 2016 from venues ranging from Buzzfeed to Elle magazine. It won the Sri Lankan National Book Award for best English novel and the Godage Award for Best English Novel by the esteemed Godage Publishing House.
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Island of a Thousand Mirrors
Nayomi Munaweera’s debut novel is a fiction book about the 26 year long Sri Lankan civil war and was long-listed for the Man Asia Literary Prize and the Dublin IMPAC Prize. It was short-listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Northern California Book Prize. It won the Commonwealth Regional Prize for the Asian Region. It won a Godage Prize from its home country and was the Target Book Club selection for January 2016.
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Nayomi Munaweera was born in Sri Lanka. She grew up in Nigeria and immigrated to Los Angeles with her family in the early 80's. She is the award-winning author of the novels, ISLAND OF A THOUSAND MIRRORS and WHAT LIES BETWEEN US.
She has been named one of “Twelve Women of Color Writers You Need to Know” by Bustle Magazine and “One of the Asian American Women Writers Who are Going to Change the World” by Electric Literature.
Munaweera is also widely anthologized in collections such as Good Girls Marry Doctors; South Asian-American Women on Obedience and Rebellion, Oakland Noir, Many Roads Through Paradise, Write to Reconcile Anthologies I and III and All the Women in My Family Sing.
Her short fiction and non-fiction are also widely published. She has been honored as a KQED Woman to Watch and has been written up in Vogue India.
She has presented around the world at literary festivals including the Jaipur Literary Festival, Mumbai Literary Festival, Galle Literary Festival, Bay Area Book Festival, LitQuake and AWP. Her debut novel has been the freshman incoming read at UC Santa Cruz for three consecutive years. She appears frequently at book clubs, classrooms and bookstores and loves engaging with readers.
Munaweera is an alumni of VONA, Voices of Our Ancestors Writing Workshop and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She teaches at Mills College and at the Ashland University low-residency MFA Program. She holds writing workshops in Sri Lanka through a program called Write to Reconcile in which she co-teaches with legendary Sri Lankan writer, Shyam Selvadurai. Their aim is to use creative writing as a tool of reconciliation and healing for both Tamil and Sinhala survivors of the civil war.
