Tara K. Menon

Education: B.A., Columbia University (2011)
M.A., New York University (2014)
Ph.D., New York University (2019) 
Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows (2019-2021, 2022-2023)  

Interests: the novel; realism; narrative theory; nineteenth-century British literature; contemporary fiction

Tara K. Menon is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Harvard University. Her first academic monograph, Speaking Parts: Conversation, Character and Social Worlds (Princeton University Press, 2026) examines how direct speech—words enclosed in quotation marks that appear to be the exact utterances of characters—shapes our understanding of fictional characters and the social worlds they inhabit. Her academic work has appeared in Narrative, NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, and Studies in the Novel.

Her debut novel, Under Water (Riverhead/Summit 2026) is about grief, friendship, and the environment. It has been, or will be, translated into 34 languages and was shortlisted for the Waterstone Debut Fiction Prize. Her essays and reviews have appeared in publications including The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, The Nation, New York Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Sewanee Review, The Point, Bookforum, The Paris Review, and Public Books, where she co-edits the Literary Fiction section.

Selected Academic Work
“Forms of Discourse: The Significance of Direct Speech,” Studies in the Novel, vol 56, no. 2, Winter 2024
“Constructing Attachment: Persistent and Elided Speech in Jane Austen’s Novels," NOVEL: A Forum in Fiction, 57.3
“Keeping Count: Direct Speech in Nineteenth-Century British Novels,” Narrative, vol. 27, no. 2 (May), 2019. (Winner of James Phelan Prize for Best Article in Narrative.)

Selected Criticism 
"Double Vision," The Nation, On Ben Lerner
"Parents and Sons," The Nation, On Edouard Louis
"The Steadfast Attention of Sigrid Nunez," The Sewanee Review, On Sigrid Nunez 

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