Leslie Shimotakahara

Leslie Shimotakahara’s third novel, Sisters of the Spruce, was highlighted on CBC’s The Next Chapter, featured on Quill & Quire‘s “2024 Spring Preview: Fiction” and named in 49th Shelf‘s “Most Anticipated: Our 2024 Spring Fiction Preview.” Her memoir, The Reading List, won the Canada-Japan Literary Prize and has been translated into Japanese, and her fiction has been shortlisted for the KM Hunter Artist Award. She has written two other critically acclaimed novels, After the Bloom and Red Oblivion. 

After the Bloom received a starred review from Booklist and is Bustle’s number one choice in “50 Books To Read With Your Book Club,” while Kirkus Reviews praised Red Oblivion for displaying “virtuosity in this subtle deconstruction of one family’s tainted origins.” Her writing has appeared in the National Post, World Literature Today, and Changing the Face of Canadian Literature, among other anthologies and periodicals. She completed a PhD in English at Brown University, after which she returned to her hometown of Toronto, where she now resides with her husband.