About Brit Bennett

Brit Bennett is an American novelist and essayist born and raised in Southern California. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in English from Stanford University and completed her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction and the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers[1][2][6][7]. Bennett’s debut novel, *The Mothers* (2016), became a *New York Times* bestseller and was a finalist for the NBCC John Leonard First Novel Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. It tells a story of young love and secrets within a tight-knit Black church community in Southern California, drawing on her own upbringing[1][3][5]. Her second novel, *The Vanishing Half* (2020), also achieved *New York Times* bestseller status and was selected as a *Good Morning America* Book Club pick. It explores themes of racial identity and family, following twin sisters who grow up together but lead very different lives as adults. The novel was longlisted for the National Book Award, a finalist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and named one of the ten best books of 2020 by *The New York Times*[1][2][4][5][7]. Bennett has been recognized as a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, a NAACP Image Award finalist, and listed among *Time* magazine’s Next 100 Influential People[1][4]. In addition to her novels, Bennett’s essays have appeared in prestigious publications such as *The New Yorker*, *The New York Times Magazine*, *The Paris Review*, and *Jezebel*. She is based in Los Angeles and is noted for addressing themes of race, identity, and systemic injustice in her work[1][2][4][5]. As of 2025, Bennett remains a significant contemporary voice in American literature, with her works continuing to receive critical acclaim and cultural relevance.

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