Fatima Farheen Mirza

Fatima Farheen Mirza Ahmed (née Mirza; born April 10, 1991) is an American novelist best known for her novel A Place for Us (2018),^[1] which was a New York Times Best Seller.^[2] She was also honored by the National Book Award Foundation as a "5 Under 35" Honoree in 2020.

Fatima Farheen Mirza
Mirza in 2019
Born	(1991-04-10) April 10, 1991 (age 34) California, U.S.
Education	University of California (BA) University of Iowa (MFA)
Occupation	Novelist
Spouse	Riz Ahmed ​ (m. 2020)​
Children	1
Signature

Early life and education

Mirza was born and raised in California.^[3] Her parents are both of Indian descent; her mother grew up to a British Indian family in Birmingham, while her father immigrated to the United States from Hyderabad.^[4] She grew up in an observant Muslim family.^[5] Mirza attended the University of California, Riverside, where she pursued medical studies at first but made a career shift to creative writing as an undergraduate.^[3] She later graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop^[3][6][7] and received the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship.^[8] She has taught at the University of Iowa and New York University.^[9]

Career

Mirza submitted the book manuscript for her debut novel A Place for Us for publication in 2017.^[10] The 400-page novel^[11] was the first book to be published by actor Sarah Jessica Parker's new imprint in collaboration with Crown Publishing Group, called SJP for Hogarth.^[12] A Place for Us took Mirza eight years to write,^[10] and explores the shifting dynamics in a Muslim immigrant family living in the States after having immigrated from Hyderabad, India. The novel was reviewed by the New York Times,^[13] the Los Angeles Review of Books,^[14] and The Washington Post.^[15] The book was a 2018 bestseller,^[2] and was named among the best books of 2018 by The Washington Post,^[16] Buzzfeed,^[17] and People magazine.^[18] She has been a guest on a number of podcasts celebrating her writing career such as Riff Raff,^[19] Books with Jen,^[20] Shalwar Kameez Dreams^[21] and Bridge India's Voices.^[22]

Awards and honors

Mirza was nominated by author Tommy Orange as an honoree for the National Book Award Foundation's 5 under 35.^[23]

Personal life

Mirza married British actor Riz Ahmed in 2020 after meeting at a coffee shop in Brooklyn in 2018.^[24][25][26] In 2025, Ahmed revealed that Mirza gave birth to their first child.^[27]