Ella Frances Sanders

Ella Frances Sanders is a New York Times and internationally-bestselling author and illustrator of almost five books. She currently writes and illustrates a column about words for Orion Magazine, titled ‘Root Catalog’.

Her first book, LOST IN TRANSLATION, was published in the US by Ten Speed Press in 2014 (in the UK by Square Peg under the same title) and became an international bestseller. It sat on the New York Times bestseller list for 4 consecutive months, was an Amazon Best Book of 2014, and in 2018 it was announced as the No.1 book for the biggest bookseller in Japan, Kinokuniya, which is only the second time a non-fiction title has ever been chosen for the award in the bookseller’s history.

This was followed in 2016 by THE ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF SAYINGS from Ten Speed Press in the US (in the UK under the title SPEAKING IN TONGUES from Square Peg), and has also been translated into over ten languages.

Her third book, EATING THE SUN, was published in 2019 by Penguin in the US to a starred review from Publishers Weekly. It was the recipient of the 2019 Whirling Prize for prose, featured on The Marginalian Favorite Books of 2019 list, and has been translated into multiple languages, with a UK edition published by 535 (Bonnier) under the title A SMALL ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE.

CLOSE AGAIN was published in January 2022, and is an illustrated commentary on and investigation into life during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was published by Andrews McMeel in the US, with translations currently in Italian, German, and Japanese.

Sanders' fifth book, EVERYTHING, BEAUTIFUL, is out August 23rd 2022 in the US from Penguin Life, and soon after available September 1st in the UK from Square Peg.