Please note: Idra Novey is unable to visit in person, but will participate via a virtual platform.

Idra Novey is a poet, novelist and translator. Her recent novel “Take What You Need” was a New York Times Notable Book of 2023, a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and longlisted for the Dublin Literary Prize. Her second poetry collection “Exit, Civilian” was chosen by Patricia Smith for the National Poetry Series. She is the co-translator with Ahmad Nadalizadeh of Iranian poet Garous Abdolmalekian’s, “Lean Against This Late Hour,” a finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Prize in 2021. Novey’s fiction and poetry have been translated into a dozen languages and she’s written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post and The Guardian. Her new book of poems “Soon & Wholly” was released in fall 2024. She teaches creative writing at Princeton University.

The Visiting Writers Reading Series is sponsored by the Department of English, the Office of the Provost and Dean of the Faculty, the Lawrence Parke Murphy and Robert Goldstein Trust, and by generous donations from the extended Whitman community.