Tahereh Mafi was born on November 10, 1988. She is an Iranian-American author who lives in Santa Monica, California. She is known for writing young adult fiction.

Early life

Mafi was born on November 9, 1988, in a small town in Connecticut. She is the youngest child in her family and has four older brothers. Her parents moved to the United States from Iran. When Mafi was 12 years old, her family moved to Northern California. At 14 years old, they moved again to Orange County.

Mafi completed high school at University High School in Irvine, California. Later, she earned a degree from Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo, California. She can speak and understand eight different languages. During college, she studied in Barcelona, Spain, for one semester. While there, she spent time learning and using the Spanish language every day.

Career

Before writing her first novel, Shatter Me, Mafi wrote five manuscripts to learn how to write a book. Shatter Me was published on November 15, 2011. Later, Unravel Me was published on February 5, 2013, and Ignite Me was published on February 4, 2014. Mafi has written five novellas that are part of the Shatter Me series: Destroy Me, Fracture Me, Shadow Me, Reveal Me, and Believe Me. The film rights to Shatter Me have been bought by 20th Century Fox.

In August 2016, Mafi released Furthermore, a middle-grade fiction novel about a pale girl living in a colorful world filled with magic that she does not possess.

In April 2017, Mafi announced a new trilogy in the Shatter Me universe that follows the same characters. The first book, Restore Me, is written from the perspectives of Juliette Ferrars, the main character, and Warner, the antagonist, from the original trilogy. Restore Me was published on March 6, 2018.

Mafi’s next book, A Very Large Expanse of Sea, was released on October 16, 2018. This book was longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

Personal life

Mafi currently lives in Irvine, California, where she still writes. In 2013, she married author Ransom Riggs. In March 2017, Mafi told people on Twitter that she was pregnant. She had a baby girl named Layla on May 30, 2017. She is Muslim.