Anna Badkhen

Biography

Anna Badkhen is the author of eight books. Her awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship, and the Joel R. Seldin Peace Award from Psychologists for Social Responsibility for writing about civilians in war zones. Eclipse Season is adapted from Badkhen's essay collection To See Beyond (Bellevue Literary Press, 2026). A former war correspondent, Badkhen grew up in the Soviet Union and is a US citizen. She is an artist in residence at the University of Pennsylvania.


 

Photograph of Anna Badkhen by Tonatiuh Ambrosetti for Fondation Jan Michalski.
Photograph by Tonatiuh Ambrosetti for Fondation Jan Michalski.

See Work

ESSAYS

Eclipse Season

By Anna Badkhen ,  Illustrations by Joanna Neborsky

When was the first prayer? Was it immediate, a direct appeal, like Abraham’s plea that God spare Sodom? Or was it asymptotic, a request that the petitioner be somehow granted an exemption from the world’s sorrows?

collage of clouds and eclipse
FICTION / Fiction 2024

A Soviet Jew Walks Into a Bar in Harlem

By Anna Badkhen ,  Illustration by João Fazenda

My boyfriend doesn’t really drink but he loves bars. He likes talking to strangers (he’s a sales executive) and he likes talking to strangers at bars; I hate talking to strangers but I like listening, and I like listening to him do it, how...

Illustration by João Fazenda