“You’re like that, by the way. Sharing the beautiful things you find just laying around the world.”
– Someone, once, to someone else.

Yara Zgheib is the author of the critically acclaimed novel No Land to Light On, which was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and selected as a 2022 Indie Book Read. “A masterful story of tragedy and redemption” written in “soul-searing prose,” the novel was chosen by The Washington Post, The L.A. Times, Newsweek, and others as one of the top ten books of 2022. From Alki Joshi, bestselling author of The Henna Artist, “Zgheib writes so lyrically about rootlessness, separation and a fierce longing for home.” No Land to Light On is currently being considered for film adaptation.

Yara’s debut novel, The Girls at 17 Swann Street, was also an Indie Next pick, a People pick for Best New Books, hailed as “an absorbing page-turner” and an “important book,” a Barnes and Noble pick for Best Books of 2019, and a BookMovement Group Read. It has been translated into four languages.

Yara is the recipient of the Rose Metal Award for Dust and Ions, a novel-in-music written with composer Alex Wakim, which has been performed in cities across the U.S. and will be published in 2027. She is completing her third novel, Why Paris., and a lyric memoir, Cartography.

She is a Fulbright scholar and Alexandra Quinn fellow, and holds a PhD in International Affairs in Diplomacy. Her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, awarded by Glimmer Train, and appeared in Lit Hub, The Huffington Post, Holiday, The European, and elsewhere, and her poetry has been adapted into two musical albums, Chasing Comets and City Rhapsodies. On cities: she was born in Beirut and lives in Paris, and her heart is in both places.