Nathan Harris, BA ’14 (English)

Rising Star Award Winner

Nathan Harris graduated in 2014 from the University of Oregon with a bachelor of arts in English. He also holds a master of fine arts from the Michener Center at the University of Texas.

His debut novel, The Sweetness of Water, was published by Little, Brown and Company, and was the summer 2021 selection of Oprah’s Book Club. Blending historical fiction and a cast of rich, complex characters, Harris tells the story of two freedmen and a Georgia farmer who forge an alliance that alters their lives forever. Running parallel to their relationship is a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers, all set against the backdrop of a violent, prejudiced town.

Published in 2021, The Sweetness of Water quickly became a New York Times bestseller and was declared “miraculous” by the Washington Post. The novel won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, The Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, and has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and was included in President Obama’s Summer Reading List. Harris was also honored as one of 5 Under 35 by the National Book Foundation.