RUTHVIKA RAO was born in Warangal district, Telangana, and grew up in Hyderabad, India. She graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow and recipient of the Henfield Prize in fiction. Her short fiction has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, New Letters, StoryQuarterly, and elsewhere. The Fertile Earth: A Novel (Flatiron Books) is her debut work of fiction.