Shastri Akella’s debut novel, The Sea Elephants (Penguin India, Macmillan USA 2023), was named a most anticipated debut by Good Morning America and longlisted for the 2023 Godrej Literature Live! Fiction Best First Book. His short fiction has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories: 2024 (edited by Lauren Groff) and is a winner of the 2024 Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize, the William Faulkner Prize, and the 2024 BLR Goldenberg Prize for Fiction, among others. His stories are available in Guernica, Fairy Tale Review, Black Warrior Review, The Massachusetts Review, Mint Lounge, Usawa Literary Review, The Masters Review and elsewhere.
He is currently working on his new work of fiction, A Queer Shade of Saffron, a powerful collection of stories that is represented by A Suitable Agency.