Dara Horn

The New Jersey–born author of five novels, Dara Horn studied Hebrew and Yiddish literature while earning her PhD at Harvard University, and has since taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the City University of New York, and Harvard. Her novels borrow and build upon Jewish texts and experience, both ancient and closer to contemporary times. “Is everyone going to understand every reference in there?” she said in an interview. “No, but that’s not a problem. When I’m reading Salman Rushdie, I’m not sitting here waiting for an explanation of why some character is covering her hair. I don’t want to read a book with footnotes—I want to be welcomed into a world.”