Samina Ali

Samina is the author of the internationally acclaimed novel Madras on Rainy Days (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), winner of France’s prestigious Prix Premier Roman Étranger Award and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the memoir Pieces You’ll Never Get Back (Catapult, 2025), which chronicles her near-fatal childbirth and seven-year recovery. The memoir was named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and Zibby Owens, a Best Book of March by the Los Angeles Times, Ms. Magazine, and others, and selected as a Belletrist STACKED & BRIEF April Pick, the celebrity book club led by actress Emma Roberts. It was featured on the cover of The Washington Post Sunday Book World and the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Datebook, with a major profile in the Daily Mail. Screen rights have been optioned.

Ali curated the groundbreaking global exhibition Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art & Voices, and her widely viewed TEDx talk on what the Qur’an really says about hijab has received more than 8 million views worldwide. A former U.S. State Department cultural ambassador, she has spoken at the Nobel Women’s Initiative, Harvard, Yale, the University of Rochester, and for organizations including Okta. Her work and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, NPR, The Huffington Post, and The Economist. She lives in California and speaks globally on women’s rights, faith, medical justice, immigration, and survival.