Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan is a British and American writer known for her novels Harmless Like You (2016) and Starling Days (2019). In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

She was born in London to a half-Chinese, half-Japanese American mother and a British father. She grew up between London and New York. Buchanan earned a B.A. from Columbia University, where she was a Core Scholar. She later lived in Tokyo, working as an intern for a management consulting firm, before completing an M.F.A. at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Her debut novel, Harmless Like You, was published in the U.K. by Sceptre in 2016 and in the U.S. by W. W. Norton in 2017. The story follows Yuki Oyama, a Japanese-American girl in 1960s New York, and her estranged son Jay, who must confront the mother who abandoned him as a child. The book won Betty Trask and the Author's Club Best First Novel awards. It was also shortlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize. The New York Times Book Review included it in its "Editor's Choice" section, and NPR named it a Great Read.

Buchanan’s second novel, Starling Days (2019), explores mental health and relationships through the story of newlyweds Mina and Oscar. It was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award and praised for its sensitive portrayal of depression. The Paris Review called it "an exquisite rendering of love, sadness, and misunderstanding."

In 2022, Sceptre acquired Buchanan's third novel, The Sleepwatcher. The book follows a 16-year-old girl who moves unseen while her body remains in bed. Buchanan is also the editor of Go Home! (2018), an anthology of stories by Asian American writers published by Feminist Press.

Her short fiction has appeared in Granta, Tin House, and TriQuarterly, while her essays have been published in The Guardian, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review. She has been a fellow at the Asian American Writers' Workshop and Kundiman.

Buchanan has spoken about themes of identity and intergenerational trauma in her work. She has said, "A lot of what the book is about is how pain shape-shifts down the generations. There is nothing more personal than family, yet families are so profoundly affected by political decisions."

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan lives in the U.K. with her partner and daughter and teaches Creative Writing at Cambridge.

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