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Astra House is dedicated to publishing authors across genres and from around the world.

We value works that are authentic, ask new questions, present counter-narratives and original thinking, challenge our assumptions, and broaden and deepen our understanding of the world.

Our mission is to advocate for authors who experience their subject deeply and personally, and who have a strong point of view; writers who represent multifaceted expressions of intellectual thought and personal experience, and who can introduce readers to new perspectives about their everyday lives as well as the lives of others.

New in Fiction

We Are a Haunting By Tyriek White

We Are a Haunting

A Novel

Do You Remember Being Born? By Sean Michaels

Do You Remember Being Born?

A Novel

Uranians By Ted McCombs

Uranians

Stories

Candelaria By Melissa Lozada-Oliva

Candelaria

A Novel

New in Translation

I Went To See My Father By Kyung-Sook Shin

I Went To See My Father

A Novel

Pleasure of Thinking By Wang Xiaobo

Pleasure of Thinking

Essays

My Men By Victoria Kielland

My Men

A Novel

Pedro and Marques Take Stock By José Falero

Pedro and Marques Take Stock

A Picaresque Novel

New in Nonfiction

The Bathysphere Book By Brad Fox

The Bathysphere Book

Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths

Rivermouth By Alejandra Oliva

Rivermouth

A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration

Seeing By Chai Jing

Seeing

A Memoir of Truth and Courage from China's Most Influential Television Journalist

The Parenthood Dilemma By Gina Rushton

The Parenthood Dilemma

Procreation in the Age of Uncertainty

New in Poetry

Dreaming of You By Melissa Lozada-Oliva

Dreaming of You

A Novel in Verse

Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm By Yu Xiuhua

Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm

Poems and Essays

Browse All Astra House Titles

Coming Soon

Y/N

Y/N

Esther Yi
I Went To See My Father

I Went To See My Father

Kyung-Sook Shin
We Are a Haunting

We Are a Haunting

Tyriek White
The Bathysphere Book

The Bathysphere Book

Brad Fox
Wild Dances

Wild Dances

William Lee Adams
Uranians

Uranians

Ted McCombs
Rivermouth

Rivermouth

Alejandra Oliva

What's New?

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Many years ago, a colleague challenged me to a friendly contest. We’d each prepare an opera playlist that could serve as a crash course: designed to introduce an open-minded but... Read More

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Book Club Kit for Forbidden Notebook

An exquisitely crafted portrayal of domestic life, Forbidden Notebook recognizes the universality of human aspirations—this book will create unforgettable conversations. Download the free reading group guide and book club kit... Read More

“You haven’t tasted anything until you’ve tasted it slow.”

An invitation to create more spaciousness in your life from Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, author of The Sex Lives of African Women. Read More

Meet the Team

Benjamin Schrank

Ben Schrank

COO and Publisher
Alessandra Bastagli

Alessandra Bastagli

Editorial Director
Deborah Ghim, Astra House

Deborah Ghim

Editor
Tiffany Gonzalez

Tiffany Gonzalez

Marketing Manager
Rola Harb, Astra House

Rola Harb

Assistant Editor
Frankie DiGiovanni, Astra Publishing House

Alexis Nowicki

Publicist
Rachael Small

Rachael Small

Publicity Director
Signe Swanson Astra House

Signe Swanson

Editorial Assistant
Danny Vasquez

Danny Vazquez

Senior Editor
Frances DiGiovanni, Astra House Team

Frankie DiGiovanni

Junior Designer
Benjamin Schrank
COO and Publisher

Ben Schrank
Alessandra Bastagli
Editorial Director

Alessandra Bastagli
Tiffany Gonzalez
Marketing Manager

Tiffany Gonzalez
Rola Harb, Astra House
Assistant Editor

Rola Harb
Rachael Small
Publicity Director

Rachael Small
Signe Swanson Astra House
Editorial Assistant

Signe Swanson
Deborah Ghim, Astra House
Editor

Deborah Ghim
Frankie DiGiovanni, Astra Publishing House
Publicist

Alexis Nowicki
Danny Vasquez
Senior Editor

Danny Vazquez
Frances DiGiovanni, Astra House Team
Junior Designer

Frankie DiGiovanni
Benjamin Schrank

COO and Publisher

Ben Schrank

(he/him/his)

Ben Schrank is Publisher of Astra House and COO of Astra Publishing House. Ben was previously President and Publisher at Henry Holt and Company and prior to that, he was President and Publisher of Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House, where he edited and published many award winning and #1 New York Times multi-million bestselling children’s books. At Astra, Ben has acquired the short story collection Jerusalem Beach by Iddo Gefen, the novel Emergency by Daisy Hildard and the Swedish award winning and bestselling novel Collected Works by Lydia Sandrgren. 

Alessandra Bastagli

Editorial Director

Alessandra Bastagli

(she/her/hers)

Alessandra has worked in publishing for over 20 years, both as a book editor and as an online news editor at Al Jazeera America. She has worked with journalists including Alia Malek, Dani McClain, P.E. Moskowitz, and Gary Younge; academics, activists and public thinkers like Juan Cole, Ibram X. Kendi, Darnell Moore, and Mychal Denzel Smith; and political figures such as Rep. Ilhan Omar, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Yanis Varoufakis. At Astra House she is publishing William Lee Adams, Brian Barth, Vanessa A. Bee, Jeanne Carstensen, Jill Damatac, Alba deCespedes, Nana Darkoa Sekiyamah, Layal Liverpool, Derecka Purnell, Saumya Roy and Ingrid Robeyns among others. She is fluent in Italian and German and is the published translator, from German, of Jurek Becker, and from Italian, of Primo Levi.

Tiffany Gonzalez

Marketing Manager

Tiffany Gonzalez

(she/her/hers)

Tiffany Gonzalez previously worked in Production at HarperCollins Publishers. She has worked on the Publicity and Marketing campaign for Dreaming of You by Melissa Lozada-Oliva and on the Marketing campaigns for Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell, The Sex Lives of African Women by Nana Darkoa Sekiyamah and The Town of Babylon, by Alejandro Varela. She has earned her Bachelors and Master’s degrees from Rutgers University – NB. She’s fluent in Spanish and is excited to bring unique and creative initiatives to fruition.

Rola Harb, Astra House

Assistant Editor

Rola Harb

(she/her/hers)

Rola Harb is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University. She joined Astra House in 2021 after interning at the Arab Center Washington DC, PRH, MMQ Literary Agency, W.W. Norton, and The New Press. With a focus on traditionally underrepresented voices and stories, she is drawn to literary fiction with powerful and evocative prose, uncanny genre-bending ideas, and progressive thought. She is also interested in French and Arabic literature and translation and literary and narrative based nonfiction and essays.

Rachael Small

Publicity Director

Rachael Small

(she/her/hers)

Rachael Small is a literary translator and publicist. She previously directed publicity for Europa Editions, where she led campaigns for Elena Ferrante’s bestselling novels, The Lying Life of Adults and The Story of the Lost Child (translated by Ann Goldstein), Mieko Kawakami’s breakout novel Breasts and Eggs (translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd), and many more. She has also edited translations of novels by Négar Djavadi, Canék Sanchez Guevara, Aura Xilonen, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, and Christelle Dabos. Her translation of Abdellah Taïa’s short story collection, Another Morocco (Semiotext(e)) was named one of World Literature Today‘s “75 Notable Translations of 2017.”

Signe Swanson Astra House

Editorial Assistant

Signe Swanson

(she/her/hers)

Signe Swanson is a graduate of Brown University, where she studied Comparative Literature. She is an alumna of the Fulbright Program in Ukraine, where she taught English at Cherkasy National University. Though her literary tastes are broad, she is especially interested in novels that tell powerful stories, vulnerably. She is also interested in poetry, history and critical theory. Some of her favorite living writers are Svetlana Alexievich, Percival Everett, Lorrie Moore, Lisa Robertson, Vivian Gornick, and Tao Lin. 

Deborah Ghim, Astra House

Editor

Deborah Ghim

(she/her/hers)

Deborah Ghim has worked as a literary scout and in editorial at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, where she edited Christina Sharpe, Virginie Despentes, Pankaj Mishra, and Antonio Muñoz Molina, among many others. At Astra House, her authors include Andrea Abreu, Esther Yi, Michael Deagler, Jungeun Hwang, Sean Michaels, Celina Baljeet Basra, and Theodore McCombs. Deborah is looking to acquire craft-driven literary fiction with a fearless POV and strong evocation of place or (sub)culture. She is also drawn to intellectually rigorous, transgressive, ideology-expanding nonfiction with poetic sensibilities and a literary arc. Deborah has lived in Chicago, Boston, Honolulu, Austin, and San Francisco, but is now settled in Brooklyn. She is fluent in Korean.

Frankie DiGiovanni, Astra Publishing House

Publicist

Alexis Nowicki

(she/her/hers)

Alexis Nowicki previously worked in the publicity department at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, where she led campaigns for books including Alec MacGillis’s Fulfillment, Jonathan Slaght’s Owls of the Eastern Ice, Jacqueline Rose’s On Violence and On Violence Against Women, Tamara Shopsin’s LaserWriter II, and francine j. harris’s Here is the Sweet Hand. Originally from Michigan — where she worked at 826michigan, InsideOut Literary Arts Project, and the Michigan Theater — she now resides in Brooklyn.

Danny Vasquez

Senior Editor

Danny Vazquez

(he/him/his)

Daniel Vazquez worked in editorial at MCD / FSG and HarperCollins and in publicity and marketing at The New Press. In those capacities, he worked with Guy Gunaratne, Kawai Strong Washburn, the owner of the brand The Hundreds, Bobby Hundreds, and Roya Marsh, among others. At Astra House, he is publishing books by Adam Soto, Okezie Nwọka, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Alejandra Oliva, Julian Aguon, Aaron Timms, and more. He is focused on acquiring genre-bending literary fiction and narrative nonfiction representing strong, under-represented voices and bold, progressive ideas. He is fluent in Spanish.

Frances DiGiovanni, Astra House Team

Junior Designer

Frankie DiGiovanni

(she/her/hers)

Junior Designer

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