Creative Writing Faculty
Idra Novey
Photo credit: Jesse Dittmar
About
Idra Novey is a novelist, poet, and translator. Her novel Take What You Need was a New York Times Notable Book of 2023, a finalist for the 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Prize. Her first novel Ways to Disappear was a finalist for the L.A. Times First Fiction Prize and winner of the 2016 Brooklyn Public Library Prize and the Sami Rohr Prize. Her fiction and poetry have been translated into a dozen languages, and she has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. In 2022, she received a Pushcart Prize for her story "The Glacier" published in The Yale Review.
Her works as a translator include Clarice Lispector’s novel The Passion According to G.H. and a co-translation with Ahmad Nadalizadeh of Iranian poet Garous Abdolmalekian, Lean Against This Late Hour, a finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Prize in 2021.
Her most recent book of poems, Soon and Wholly, was published in September 2024.
Courses
News + Links
Idra Novey’s fiction appears in the Fall/Winter issue of The Yale Review
16 Faces of 2016 | Interview Magazine
Best Books of the New Year 2016 | Ploughshares
Those Who Knew chosen as a November 2018 “Indie Next Paperback Pick” | American Booksellers Association
Panel Discussion on “Writing Against Patriarchy” — NY Center for Fiction, November 7, 2019, at 7 PM
“Harmony, Interrupted: How Will Live Music Return?” | The Chronicles of Now, June 2020
Collaboration with visual artist Erica Baum: “Too Soon to Tell” | Poetry Society of America, October 2020
Lean Against This Late Hour, a collection of poems by Garous Abdolmalekian translated from the Persian by Novey and Ahmad Nadalizadeh, longlisted for PEN Award for Poetry in Translation | PEN America, December 2020
Lean Against This Late Hour, a collection of poems by Garous Abdolmalekian translated from the Persian by Novey and Ahmad Nadalizadeh, named finalist for PEN Award for Poetry in Translation | PEN America, February 2021
Novey’s short story “The Glacier” wins a 2022 Pushcart Prize and is included in 2022 Pushcart Prize Anthology | The Yale Review, June 28, 2021
“Each Sentence Is One You Can Feel” | The Atlantic, May 2022
Novel: Take What You Need | Viking/Penguin Random House, March 2023
Novey’s Take What You Need included among “38 new books we can’t wait to read in 2023” | Today, January 2023
With Take What You Need, Novey called “one of the finest and bravest novelists working today” | Vulture, “31 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2023,” Jan. 3, 2023
Starred Kirkus Review of Take What You Need
Take What You Need named among 3 “FicPicks” for CBS New York Book Club. Vote through March 12, 2023. | CBS News, March 7, 2023
Read an excerpt: Take What You Need | The London Magazine, August 2023
Read Novey’s short story: “Conversations with My Father” | Granta, August 3, 2023
Novey’s Take What You Need named among best books of 2023:
- New York Times Notable Book of the Year
- LA Times 15 Best Works of Fiction of 2023
- New Yorker Best Books of 2023
- The Guardian Best Books to Give as Presents
- NPR Best Books of 2023
- Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize
- Longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award
Take What You Need Announced Finalist for 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize | New Literary Project, March 2024
Barnes & Noble selects Take What You Need as March Fiction Pick | Barnes & Noble, March 2024
Novey contributes foreword to Penguin Classics edition of Pedro Lemebel’s A Last Supper of Queer Apostles
News for Soon and Wholly (Fall 2024):
- Named a best new book of September 2024 with Chicago Review of Books
- Reviewed by David Woo in LitHub‘s best poetry books of October 2024
- Featured in Poetry Magazine‘s podcast
- Featured in Orion magazine
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