Nathaniel Rich is the author of Cloudthief (2026) and three previous novels, all New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice selections: King Zeno (2018); Odds Against Tomorrow (2013); and The Mayor's Tongue (2008). His short fiction has won the Emily Clark Balch Prize and been a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has also written two works of nonfiction: Second Nature (2021), which includes the story that serves as the basis for the film Dark Waters; and Losing Earth (2019), a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Losing Earth is being adapted into a film directed by Tom McCarthy.
Rich is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a frequent contributor to The Atlantic, Harper's, and The New York Review of Books. A 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches at Tulane University and lives in New Orleans.

"[A] meticulously plotted, philosophically compelling caper . . . Engrossing . . . Genuine intellectual heft and fast-paced, nimbly plotted action can coexist, after all. Top-notch."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Nathaniel Rich has constructed a category of fiction inescapably classifiable as noir reportage. Cloudthief is a must-read novel for anyone disturbed about the dubious direction of the 21st century."
--Barry Gifford, author of Sailor & Lula and The Exception

"Cloudthief is a literary tour de force that takes us deep inside the immensely powerful systems that have become the secret architecture of our lives. It is at once a gripping narrative of crime and consequence, and a devastating critique of our surveillance-obsessed world. This novel confirms Nathaniel Rich as one of our most essential and prophetic voices."
--Amitav Ghosh, author of Ghost-Eye

"Cloudthief is a sneaky, clever 21st century heist novel that's a propulsive page turner, but also contains multitudes in the ways it interrogates our modern condition. Extremely satisfying and very funny."
--Jeff VanderMeer, author of the Southern Reach series