I’m a writer, translator (from Italian), and editor.

My nonfiction debut, The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), is currently a finalist for the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History. It was selected as a New York Times Notable Book and 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, 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 2020 PEN Translation Prize, the National Translation Award, and more. I’ve also contributed to two 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). In 2021, I received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in translation.

I’ve written for The New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, n+1, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Point, Literary Hub (where I was formerly an editor), and other publications. A former board member of the American Literary Translators Association, I am currently an advisory editor for The Paris Review. I was also one of the judges for the 2024 International Booker Prize.

I am currently working on my first novel.