Hi there. I’m Sonia Faleiro. I’m a writer based in London. I'm drawn to stories that shed light on urgent issues and to building spaces that support underrepresented voices and make a difference in the world.

My new book, The Robe and the Sword: How Buddhist Extremism is Shaping Modern Asia, will be published in November 2025 and is available to pre-order. Thant Myint-U writes, “With sharp insight and deep humanity, Sonia Faleiro’s The Robe and the Sword traces the long and uneasy bond between Buddhism and political power, offering a vital portrait of how faith, identity, and resistance are being redefined across the region.”

I’ve also co-edited, with Fatima Bhutto, a collection of testimonies on the genocide in Gaza (Verso, October 2025).

Earlier books include The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing (Bloomsbury/Grove Atlantic, 2021), which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a Sunday Times Book of the Year, and a Human Rights Watch Book Club pick. It was nominated for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-fiction, and the Premio Inge Feltrinelli, and has been translated into French, Italian, and Polish.

I also wrote Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars (2011), which was shortlisted for the Lettre Ulysses Award and named a Sunday Times Travel Book of the Year. It was recognised by The Guardian, The Economist, NPR, and Time Out as a Best Book of the Year and translated into Swedish, Dutch, and French. I edited How I Write (HarperCollins, 2024), a collection of conversations with leading South Asian writers, including Pankaj Mishra, Mira Nair, Kamila Shamsie, and Jamil Jan Kochai.

My journalism and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper’s, Granta, Rest of World, The Financial Times, and The California Sunday Magazine. Highlights include reporting on the war in Kashmir for Harper’s, exploring fact-checking in Modi’s India for Rest of World, and profiling India’s wrestling star for 1843.

In 2020, I founded South Asia Speaks, a literary mentorship program supporting emerging writers across eight South Asian countries. Since its launch, our fellows have published ten books, signed with agencies like CAA and The Wylie Agency, and earned fully funded places at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the Logan Nonfiction Program, the Creative Writing Program at NYU, and The New India Foundation.

I’m the co-founder of Deca, a global collective of longform journalists, and the founder of Artists for India, which raised $30,000 during the COVID-19 crisis for Mission Oxygen. In 2024, I joined writer Fatima Bhutto and literary agent Julia Churchill to launch #BooksforGaza, raising $85,000 for The Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund for aid for injured children.

I’ve taught at Royal Holloway and Goldsmiths (University of London) and designed workshops for Ashoka University and the National Centre for Writing.

I'm represented by Janklow & Nesbit and United Talent Agency.

I'd love to hear from you if you’d like to collaborate or learn more. Thank you.