Tahereh Mafi

Iranian-American author of the Shatter Me young adult dystopian series, celebrated for its distinctive stream-of-consciousness prose and emotionally intense storytelling.

Tahereh Mafi is an Iranian-American author whose Shatter Me series, beginning with Shatter Me in 2011, established her as one of the most distinctive voices in young adult fiction. Born in Connecticut to Iranian parents, Mafi published her debut at twenty-two and immediately demonstrated a prose style unlike anything else in the genre: a breathless, stream-of-consciousness narration full of crossed-out words (the protagonist’s second-guessing made visible on the page), lyrical description, and intense emotional immediacy.

Shatter Me introduces Juliette Ferrars, a seventeen-year-old who has been imprisoned since childhood because her touch is deadly — she can kill with her skin, and the dystopian regime that runs her world wants to weaponize this ability. The series blends dystopian world-building with a romantic storyline and a protagonist whose journey from victimhood to agency forms the emotional core of the narrative. Mafi’s distinctive prose style — influenced by her love of poetry and her desire to represent the chaos of a traumatized mind — made the series stand out instantly in the crowded post-Hunger Games YA landscape.

The series ran to six volumes, then was extended with further companion novels. Mafi has also written a standalone middle grade novel and co-written a collaborative project with her husband, the author Ransom Riggs. She has spoken publicly about the Iranian-American experience and the way her heritage and family’s immigration story inform her fiction. For young adult readers who want something more stylistically adventurous than the genre’s typical prose register, Mafi’s work is immediately arresting.