Specialization:
Ph.D., Stanford University, Modern Thought and Literature
Creative writing; Asian American literature; cultural studies; postcolonial literature and criticism; sports studies.
Bio:
Sameer Pandya received his BA in History from the University of California, Davis and his PhD in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University. He is a novelist and an interdisciplinary literary and cultural studies scholar whose work is primarily interested in questions of cultural dislocation, masculinity, and racial identity among South Asian Americans. He is the author of three books:
THE BLIND WRITER: STORIES AND A NOVELLA , was published in the Intersections Series by the University of Hawaii Press in 2015. Longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award, the stories follow the lives of first- and second-generation Indian Americans living in contemporary California.
His first novel MEMBERS ONLY, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2020, was named an NPR Best Books of 2020 and was a finalist for the 90th Annual California Book Award in Fiction. See the review of the novel in the New York Times and listen to interviews on NPR’s Morning Edition with Steve Inskeep, Texas Public Radio, and WBUR Chicago.
In 2025, his second novel OUR BEAUTIFUL BOYS was published by Ballantine/Penguin Random House in the US and Bloomsbury in the UK. See reviews in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Alta and Zyzzyva.
Pandya has been awarded writing residencies from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation and Willapa Bay AiR.
In his scholarly essays, Pandya is interested in the intersection of Asian American Studies and the cultural politics of sports. His work has appeared in the Journal of Asian American Studies, South Asian Popular Culture and Amerasia.
Pandya has also published widely in the popular press, with recent work appearing in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic, among other places.
Select Publications:
Fiction
OUR BEAUTIFUL BOYS. Ballantine Books, 2025.
MEMBERS ONLY. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020.
THE BLIND WRITER: STORIES AND A NOVELLA. University of Hawaii Press, 2015.
Scholarship
“Freaks and Geeks: On the Provisional Citizenship of Indian American Spelling Bee Winners,” Journal of Asian American Studies, Volume 20.2, June 2017.
“On the Cultural Politics of Asian American Sport,” Amerasia Journal, Volume 41.2 (Summer 2015). Co-Authored and journal issue co-edited with Rachael Joo.
“Situating Vijay Singh in (Asian) America,” South Asian Popular Culture, Volume 13.1 (Fall 2013).
-Reprinted in Sport and South Asian Diasporas, Daniel Burdsey, Stanley Thangaraj, and Rajindra Dudrah, Editors. (New York: Routledge 2014).