Katie Kitamura (born 1979) is an American novelist, journalist, and art critic. She is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the London Consortium.^[2]

Katie Kitamura was born in Sacramento, California^[3] in 1979 to a family of Japanese origin,^[4] and raised in Davis, where her father Ryuichi was a professor at UC Davis Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.^[2][5][6]

Kitamura graduated from Princeton University in New Jersey in 1999. She earned a PhD in American literature from the London Consortium.^[7] Her thesis was titled The Aesthetics of Vulgarity and the Modern American Novel (2005).^[8]

Earlier in her life, Kitamura trained as a ballerina.^[9][10]

Kitamura wrote Japanese for Travellers: A Journey, describing her travels across Japan and examining the dichotomies of its society and her own place in it as a Japanese-American.^[11]

Kitamura was introduced to mixed martial arts in Japan by her brother.^[12] Her first novel, The Longshot, published in 2009, is about the preparation undertaken by a fighter and his trainer ahead of a championship bout against a famous opponent. The cover art of the US edition of her book features the title tattooed on knuckles; the knuckles are her brother's.^[9] Kitamura's second novel, Gone to the Forest, published in 2013, is set in an unnamed colonial country and describes the life and suffering of a landowning family against a backdrop of civil strife and political change.^[13]

Kitamura's 2017 novel A Separation will be adapted for a film starring Katherine Waterston.^[14] Her novel Intimacies appeared in 2021.

Kitamura writes for The Guardian, The New York Times, and Wired.^[2] She has written articles on mixed martial arts,^[15] film criticism and analysis,^[16] and art.^[17][18]

In 2010, Kitamura's The Longshot was shortlisted for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award.^[19] In 2013, her Gone to the Forest was also shortlisted for the Young Lions Fiction Award. In 2021, Kitamura's Intimacies was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction.^[20]

Kitamura is married to author Hari Kunzru.^[23]