© Umar Timol
Priya Hein
Priya Hein was born in Mauritius. She has published several children’s books and short stories, and has contributed to a number of anthologies. In 2017, she was nominated by the National Library of Mauritius for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. In 2019, she was selected by the University of Iowa's International Writing Program’s Women’s Creative Mentorship Project as one of two female emerging writers for Mauritius. In 2024, she returned to the IWP to complete the Fall Residency, becoming the fifth residency writer from Mauritius.
Her debut novel Riambel won the 2021 Jean Fanchette Prize, chaired by J.M.G Le Clézio, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Riambel also won the 2023 Prix littéraire Athéna – Ville de Saint-Pierre and was selected by Brittle Paper as a notable book of 2023. Priya Hein was recently named by Electric Literature as one of twelve Mauritian Women Writers one should read. She lived in Munich, Germany, for a very long time with her husband and their two children, and at the moment she lives in Mauritius with her family.
