“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, and Newsweek as one of the top 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.”

Yara’s debut novel, The Girls at 17 Swann Street, was a People pick for Best New Books, which hailed it as “an absorbing page-turner,” an “important book;” a Barnes and Noble pick for Best Books of 2019; and a BookMovement Group Read. Her new novel, Why Paris., and her essay collection An Absolute Necessity are forthcoming from HarperCollins. She also recently won the 2023 Rose Metal Press competition with Dust and Ions, a novel-in-music-and-poetry written with composer Alex Wakim. It will be released and performed in 2026.

Yara is a Fulbright scholar and holds a PhD in International Affairs in Diplomacy. Her work has been published in The Huffington Post, Glimmer Train, Lithub, 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 has a piece of her heart there. The other is in Paris, where she lives.

Yara is represented by Ms. Janet Silver at Aevitas Creative Management.