Ray Nayler

Ray Nayler is the author of the critically acclaimed, Locus Award winning novel The Mountain in the Sea, published in the US by MCDxFSG and in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The Washington Post called Mountain "(a) poignant, mind-expanding debut" and Slate called it "(a) wondrous novel." David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas, said: "​I loved this novel’s brain and heart, its hidden traps, sheer propulsion, ingenious world-building and the purity of its commitment to luminous ideas." Positively reviewed in the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Publisher's Weekly (starred review) and many others, The Mountain in the Sea was a best book of the year at The Times as well as Amazon and Slate. The Mountain in the Sea was a finalist for the Nebula Award and for the LA Times Book Awards' Ray Bradbury Award for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction.

Ray's second book, the novella The Tusks of Extinction was published in January 2024 by Tordotcom. The Washington Post has called it "both breathtaking and heartbreaking" and Publishers Weekly said Tusks is "impassioned and impressive . . . an uncompromising climate fiction that strikes like a spear to the gut."

​​Born in Quebec and raised in California, Ray Nayler lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, and Kosovo. A Russian speaker, he has also learned Turkmen, Albanian, Azerbaijani, and Vietnamese. Ray is a Foreign Service Officer. He previously worked in international educational development, as well as serving in the Peace Corps in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. In Vietnam he was Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Officer at the U.S. consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. Ray also served as the international advisor to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He is currently Diplomatic Fellow and Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy at The George Washington University.