*buy Sita in Exile here*

Sita in Exile, my novella about an autistic mother and her pet mongoose in the Norwegian arctic, is a “marvellous and unexpected” “lyrical exploration of migrant sisterhood and brown motherhood in today’s Europe.” It was published in May 2023 with Miami University Press.

I am a Pushcart-nominated American Desi Norwegian with writing in, amongst other venues, The Toast, Midnight Breakfast, and Electric Literature. My work has also been nominated for Best of the Net and anthologised in Best Small Fictions 2021 and The Best Asian Poetry 2021. An excerpt of my forthcoming translation of the seminal Mauritian novel Blood-Red Sweat (Lal Pasina) has been featured at World Literature Today, and a finalist for Deep Vellum’s Best Literary Translations 2023. My debut novella, Where the Sun Will Rise Tomorrow, won the Galaxy Galloper Novella Spectacular Award and was published through that now-shuttered press in March 2020; Jaggery Lit called it “fearless and breathtaking.”

I am the Fiction Editor at Waxwing and a reviewer of fiction for Publishers Weekly. I have served as a reader for The Rumpus, an intern for Ayesha Pande Literary, Reviews Editor for Africa in Words, and Fiction Editor for Boston Accent Lit, where I convened the Accent Prize. I am a former AWP and Binders mentee and, an RWW fellow, and a Bread Loaf, VONA, and Tin House alumna. I am an Associate Professor of World Literature and have taught at universities across the USA, the UK, and Norway.

my writing includes:

“the lion in k’s garden” in Jellyfish Review

“Anyone in the Waves” in Present Tense

“Decolonization, Fashion, and Brown Girl Stories” in Brown Girl Mag

“The Anthropology Major” in Flash Flood

“Export Quality” in The Bombay Review

“The Rose Apple Tree” in Midnight Breakfast

“Ptarmigni” and “Ptarmigni on Sunday” in No Contact Mag

“Up” in Crossing Borders

“At Home, Adrift” in Angime and Sugar Sugar Salt

“Ahoy” in A-Minor Magazine

“A Year in the North” in The VIDA Review

“Jet-Black” in The Misty Review

“To Market” in Boston Accent Lit

“For Sveta Moroz” in Anima Poetry

“The Warp” in Allegro Poetry

“Untitled Poems” in Lunar Poetry

“This Little Mermaid Box…” in Apartment Therapy

“Leaning in, Standing Out…” in The Aerogram

“Ten Scenes from My Bollywood Marriage” in The Toast

“Seven Novels About Studying Abroad” in Electric Literature

*Reviews in Jaggery Lit, Desi Books Review, Africa in Words, and more

contact me at rashenka (at) gmail (dot) com

illustration credit: Lara Odell