British · b. 1993
Sara Jafari is a British-Iranian novelist and editor, born in 1993 in Kingston upon Hull to Iranian parents and raised there before moving to Brighton at sixteen. She holds a BA in English and Comparative Literature from Goldsmiths, University of London, and worked as an editorial assistant at Mills & Boon before becoming a children's editor at Penguin Random House and later Bloomsbury Publishing. In 2017 she founded TOKEN Magazine, showcasing writing and art by underrepresented creators, and in 2018 received a London Writers Award in literary fiction. Her debut novel, The Mismatch (2021), was followed by People Change (published in the US as Things Left Unsaid, 2023/2025), a dual-timeline story of a British-Iranian editor reconnecting with a childhood friend. She has also contributed to the anthology Who's Loving You. Jafari's fiction draws on her own Hull upbringing and Iranian heritage to examine identity, family, and belonging in contemporary Britain.