Megha Majumdar is the author of two bestselling novels.

A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF is an Oprah’s Book Club pick, a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize, the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Award, longlisted for the Women’s Prize, and the winner of the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF is also a New York Times notable book, a Washington Post notable book, and one of the 10 best books of the year per The Atlantic and TIME Magazine.

Her debut novel, A BURNING, was a "Read with Jenna" Book Club pick and longlisted for the National Book Award, among other honors.

Majumdar is a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow. Her work also has been supported by the Whiting, Civitella Ranieri and Hawthornden foundations. Born and raised in Kolkata, India, she now lives in New York. 

Books by Megha Majumdar

A Guardian and a Thief

by Megha Majumdar - Fiction

Megha Majumdar’s electrifying novel, following her acclaimed New York Times bestseller, A BURNING, is set in a near-future Kolkata, India, ravaged by climate change and food scarcity, in which two families seeking to protect their children must battle each other.

A Burning

by Megha Majumdar - Fiction, Literary Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

For readers of Tommy Orange, Yaa Gyasi and Jhumpa Lahiri, A BURNING is an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise --- to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies --- and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India.