Danzy Senna

Danzy Senna (born 1970) is an American novelist and essayist. Her first work, Caucasia (1998), has been translated into ten languages and has won multiple awards. The winner of a Whiting Award, Senna is the author of three novels, a memoir, and a short-story collection, along with numerous essays centering on issues of identity, motherhood, gender and race. Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including The New Yorker, Vogue and the New York Times.

Danzy Senna was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, the middle of three children.

Senna attended earned her B.A. from Stanford University and an MFA in creative writing from University of California, Irvine.

Senna's first novel, Caucasia (1998), received the Book of the Month Club's Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, was nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction, and won the Alex Award from the American Library Association. The novel was also a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was named a Los Angeles Times "Best Book of the Year".Caucasia, a national bestseller, has been translated into ten languages. Caucasia is narrated by a young biracial girl, Birdie Lee, who is taken into the political underground by her mother, and forced to live under an assumed identity. The coming of age story follows Birdie's struggle for identity and her search for the missing parts of her family.

Her second novel, Symptomatic (2004), is a psychological thriller narrated by an unnamed young woman who moves to New York City for what promises to be a dream job – a prestigious fellowship writing for a respected magazine. The narrator feels displaced, however, and is unsure of how she fits into the world around her. She becomes the object of an older woman's attention after they bond over their similarly mixed heritage. As the older woman's interest turns into obsession, the narrator must figure out what their relationship means to her, even as both of their lives seem to spiral out of control.

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