Katie Kitamura

Katie Kitamura
Kitamura in 2025 Kitamura in 2025
Born	1979 (age 46–47) Sacramento, California, U.S.
Language	English
Education	Princeton University London Consortium (PhD)
Notable works	The Longshot
Spouse	Hari Kunzru
Children	2

Katie Kitamura (born 1979) is an American novelist, journalist, and art critic. As of April 2025, she was teaching creative writing at New York University.

Early life and education

Katie Kitamura was born in Sacramento, California, United States, in 1979, to a family of Japanese origin, and she was raised in Davis, where her father Ryuichi was a professor at UC Davis Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Kitamura graduated from Princeton University in New Jersey in 1999. She earned a PhD in American literature from the London Consortium. Her thesis was titled The Aesthetics of Vulgarity and the Modern American Novel (2005).

Earlier in her life, Kitamura trained as a ballerina.

Career

Kitamura wrote Japanese for Travellers: A Journey, describing her travels across Japan and examining the dichotomies of its society and her own place in it as a Japanese-American.

Kitamura was introduced to mixed martial arts in Japan by her brother. Her first novel, The Longshot, published in 2009, is about the preparation undertaken by a fighter and his trainer ahead of a championship bout against a famous opponent. The cover art of the US edition of her book features the title tattooed on knuckles; the knuckles are her brother's. Kitamura's second novel, Gone to the Forest, published in 2013, is set in an unnamed colonial country and describes the life and suffering of a landowning family against a backdrop of civil strife and political change.

Kitamura's 2017 novel A Separation will be adapted for a film starring Katherine Waterston. Her novel Intimacies appeared in 2021.

Kitamura writes for The Guardian, The New York Times, and Wired. She has written articles on mixed martial arts, film criticism and analysis, and art.

Awards and recognition

In 2010, Kitamura's The Longshot was shortlisted for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award. In 2013, her Gone to the Forest was also shortlisted for the Young Lions Fiction Award. In 2021, Kitamura's Intimacies was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction. In 2025 Kitamura was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her novel Audition was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.

Selected bibliography

Journalism

• Art criticism in frieze magazine.
• Art criticism in Contemporary magazine.

Personal life

Kitamura is married to author Hari Kunzru.