Tara Menon was born in India, grew up in Singapore, spent a decade in New York, and now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts where she is an assistant professor of English at Harvard University. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, the Nation and the Paris Review.

Praise for Under Water

"Stunning and complex; a book that admits no easy answers but also refuses to avoid the hard questions."--Kirkus, STARRED review

"Menon's dynamic debut...is sure to pull at the reader's heartstrings." --Publishers Weekly

"Tara Menon beautifully evokes the intensity of a young woman's lost friendship, and the extraordinary natural world - on land and in the ocean - in which that friendship was forged. Under Water, in equal measure compelling and heart wrenching, is a remarkable debut. " --Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History and The Emperor's Children

"Reading Under Water is like being under water: immersive and stirring, pellucid and mysterious, shot through with light and with shades, overwhelming and exquisite-in a word, sublime." --Namwali Serpell, author of The Old Drift and The Furrows

"A novel of remarkable delicacy and power, Under Water is about grief, friendship, home, and longing. Menon writes exquisite sentences, sensual and particular, each containing an entire world."--Katie Kitamura, author of Audition and Intimacies

Publisher: Riverhead Books

Pub date: 2026-03-17

Length: 224 pages