Shas­tri Akel­la holds an MFA in Cre­ative Writ­ing and a PhD in Com­par­a­tive Lit­er­a­ture from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts Amherst. His writ­ing has appeared in Guer­ni­ca, The Mas­ter’s Review, Elec­tric Lit­er­a­ture, the Los Ange­les Review of Books, The Rum­pus, PANK, The Com­mon, and World Lit­er­a­ture Review, among oth­ers. The Sea Ele­phants is his debut novel.