Vauhini Vara is a Canadian and American journalist and author. She has written and edited for The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine.[1] Her debut novel, The Immortal King Rao, was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[2]
Early life and education
Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada to Indian immigrants, Vauhini Vara was raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada, and in Edmond, Oklahoma and Seattle, Washington in the United States. After graduating from Stanford University in 2004, she became a technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal. In 2008 she took a leave of absence from the WSJ to attend the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. She graduated with her MFA in 2010 and then returned to the WSJ for the next three years.[3]
Career
Vara was a technology reporter at the Wall Street Journal for almost ten years, covering Silicon Valley and California politics.[4][5] In 2013, she left the Wall Street Journal to work at the New Yorker's website.[6] She has also published articles in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, Fast Company, Businessweek, WIRED, and elsewhere.[7][8][9][10][11][12]
Vara is a recipient of the O. Henry Award for her fiction writing, and has published stories in Tin House, ZYZZYVA, and other publications.[13][3] In 2021, she wrote the viral piece "Ghosts," a nine-part essay about losing her older sister to cancer, using an early model of the AI that would become Chat GPT.[14] Her novel, The Immortal King Rao, was published in 2022.[15]
Vara is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Colorado State University for 2023-24.[16]
In 2015, Vara received the O. Henry Award for her story I, Buffalo.[3] Her fiction writing has also received honors from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, MacDowell, and Yaddo.[17]
Her debut novel, The Immortal King Rao, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize[18] and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics' Circle's John Leonard Prize[19] and the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize.[20] In India, the novel won the Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize[21] and the Times of India AutHer Award.[22] Wiip is developing a television series, based on the book.[23]
Personal life
Vara is on the board of the Krishna D. Vara Foundation.[24] She lives in Colorado with her husband Andrew Foster Altschul. They have one son.