Jennifer Croft

Jennifer Croft
Croft in 2017
Born1981 or 1982 (age 43–44)
Alma materUniversity of Tulsa (BA)
University of Iowa (MFA)
Northwestern University (PhD)
Occupations
  • Author
  • critic
  • translator

Jennifer Croft is an American writer and translator from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She won a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship for her novel The Extinction of Irena Rey, a national bestseller and a Wall Street Journal best book of 2024. It has been translated into nine languages.

Croft also won the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for her illustrated memoir Homesick, which was later published as a novel in the UK and shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize--Britain's oldest literary award--and longlisted for the Women's Prize. The original Spanish-language version of the book was also published as a novel. Croft has expressed ambivalence about genre labels and enthusiasm about mixing genres and even media.

In 2018, Croft received the International Booker Prize for her translation from Polish of Olga Tokarczuk's Flights. She has since advocated for broader recognition for the work and identify of the translator and for the power of collaboration in the arts.