Dr. Namrata Poddar holds a Ph.D. in French and Francophone literature from the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked as Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor in the Humanities’ postdoctoral program on Transnational Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has published as a literary critic on island cultures in English and French in academic journals across the world. She is currently pursuing MFA in Fiction at the Bennington Writing Seminars, Vermont.