American · b. 1984
Erika L. Sánchez is an American poet, novelist and essayist. She was born in Cicero, Illinois, and raised in the Chicago area by Mexican immigrant parents. She studied at the University of Illinois at Chicago and earned an MFA at the University of New Mexico. Her debut poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion (2017), was a finalist for the PEN/Open Book Award. Her first novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (2017), was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Award finalist for Young People's Literature. It also won the Ambassador Book Award and was named a Best Book of the Year by many outlets. Her essays and poems have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Poetry and The Paris Review. She has taught at several universities and held fellowships from the NEA and the Lannan Foundation. Her work centers on Mexican American families, grief, mental health and the pressure placed on daughters. She is among the leading Latina voices in contemporary young adult fiction.