Sheila Heti

Sheila Hetiis a noted Toronto-based playwright and author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction whose work has been translated in over a dozen languages.

Her playAll Our Happy Days are Stupidappeared on stages in New York and Toronto and her bookHow Should a Person Be?was a New York TimesNotable Book.

Her 2018 novelMotherhood, abouta woman debating what motherhood means andwhether or not she wants to become one at all, was shortlistedfor the 2018 ScotiabankGiller Prize.

Her 2022 novel, Pure Colour, follows Mira, who leaves home to study. There, she meets Annie, whose tremendous power opens Mira's chest like a portal. When Mira is older, her beloved father dies, and she enters thestrange and dizzying dimension that great loss opens up.

In 2022, she also published her secondpicture book, A Garden of Creatures (illustrated byEsm Shapiro), which explores how children can begin to make sense of loss.

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Books by Sheila Heti

Interviews with Sheila Heti

6:01Sheila Heti answers our Proust questionnaire

Sheila Heti on her favourite character in fiction, her greatest regret and more.

Sleepover27:26Sheila vs. the Internet

Author Sheila Heti is a shining literary light. But it seems the more popular she is, the more detractors there are. She doesnt want to be paralyzed by online comments, but she refuses to ignore valid criticism

Q19:42'Women in Clothes' editors seek why, not how, of self-presentation

Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits and Leanne Shapton on their collection of essays about what women wear.