About Anuradha D. Rajurkar
Anuradha D. Rajurkar is the award-winning author of American Betiya (Knopf) an ALA-YALSA Best Book of 2022 and on Cosmopolitan's list of 125 Best YA Books of All Time. Born and raised in the Chicago area to Indian immigrant parents, Anuradha earned two degrees from Northwestern University, and for many years had the joy of being a public school teacher by day, writer by night.
Nowadays, when she’s not writing or reading, you can find Anuradha exploring the shores of Lake Michigan, obsessing over her garden, watching old horror flicks with her sons, or roguishly knitting sweaters without their patterns. She hopes her stories will inspire teens to embrace their unique identities and inner badass despite societal pressures and expectations. Anuradha is hard at work on her second novel, a gothic thriller entitled Temporary Bodies (Knopf, 2024). She currently lives in Evanston, Illinois with her family.
Nowadays, when she’s not writing or reading, you can find Anuradha exploring the shores of Lake Michigan, obsessing over her garden, watching old horror flicks with her sons, or roguishly knitting sweaters without their patterns. She hopes her stories will inspire teens to embrace their unique identities and inner badass despite societal pressures and expectations. Anuradha is hard at work on her second novel, a gothic thriller entitled Temporary Bodies (Knopf, 2024). She currently lives in Evanston, Illinois with her family.