Anna Badkhen ’24 MFA returning to Randolph for Visiting Writers Series

Anna Badkhen ’24

Author Anna Badkhen ’24 MFA will read from her work at Randolph as part of the College’s Visiting Writers Series.

The reading will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 7, in Randolph’s Alice Ashley Jack Room, located in Smith Memorial Building.

“We are fortunate to have Anna Badkhen as part of our community—her experience as a war correspondent, journalist, and as the author of seven books provides a wealth of experience for us to learn from,” said Gary Dop, Randolph’s dean of graduate studies and innovation and founding director of the MFA in creative writing program. “I’m excited about her recent shift to writing fiction. It will be enjoyable to see how an exceptional nonfiction writer transitions into fiction writing.”

Badkhen’s most recent book, Bright Unbearable Reality, was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award and the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature.

Her awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship, and the Joel R. Seldin Award for Peace and Justice Journalism from Psychologists for Social Responsibility for writing about civilians in war zones.

She has had essays appear in New York Review of Books, Granta, Harper’s, The Paris Review, Emergence, Orion, and The New York Times and fiction in AGNI, Zyzzyva, Conjunctions, The Common, and Scalawag. Badkhen was born in the Soviet Union and is a U.S. citizen.