I’m a writer, journalist, translator (from Italian), and former book editor. Currently, I’m serving as the inaugural Centennial Fellow at Commonweal magazine.

My nonfiction debut, The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History, the Hooks National Book Award, and the Zora Award for Nonfiction. It was named a New York Times Notable Book, a Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of 2024, one of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024, one of the New York Public Library’s 10 Best Books of 2024, and a 2025 Michigan Notable Book. It was also recognized as a best book of 2024 by The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The New Republic, ELLE, Essence, Literary Hub, Booklist, and the Chicago Public Library. It is available from Chatto & Windus in the UK.

My translation of Igiaba Scego’s novel Beyond Babylon (Two Lines Press, 2019) was shortlisted for the PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award. I’ve contributed to the anthologies Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation (Tilted Axis Press, 2022) and The Heart of a Stranger: An Anthology of Exile Literature (Pushkin Press, 2019). My work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, and Creative Capital.

I’ve written for The New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, n+1, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Point, Literary Hub, and elsewhere. I’ve served as a board member for the American Literary Translators Association, an advisory editor at The Paris Review, and one of the judges for the 2024 International Booker Prize.

I am (slowly) working on a novel.