Sonora Jha is the author of The Laughter (Harper Via 2023), winner of the 2024 Washington Book Award for Fiction and the memoir How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family, published in the U.S., Germany, Brazil, and by Penguin Random House India in 2021. She also wrote the novel Foreign (Random House India, 2013), which tells the stories of farmers' suicides in India. Foreign was a finalist for The Hindu Prize for Fiction, The Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize, and was longlisted for the DSC Prize. Sonora grew up in Mumbai and was chief of the metropolitan bureau for the Times of India in Bangalore and contributing editor for East magazine in Singapore before moving to the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in media and public affairs. Dr. Jha is a professor of journalism at Seattle University and her op-eds and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Seattle Times, The Establishment, DAME, and in several anthologies. She also teaches fiction and essay writing for Hugo House, Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat, and Seattle Public Library. She is an alumna and board member of Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat, and has served on the jury for awards for Artist Trust, Hedgebrook, and Hugo House. Her latest book is the novel Intemperance (Harper Via, 2025).





