Photo by Jess Alvarenga
Mara Kardas-Nelson is an independent journalist focusing on international development, health policy, the environment and inequality. Her award-winning work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, NPR, the Guardian, and elsewhere. Her first book, We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky, a critical history of microfinance, will be published by Metropolitan Books/Holt in June 2024. Mara has also worked in global health, with South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, the Access Campaign of Médecins Sans Frontières, Partners in Health and elsewhere. Originally from the U.S., she has also lived in Canada, South Africa, and Sierra Leone. Her time in different parts of the world informs the questions she asks, and how she frames her stories.
Mara’s first book, We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky, a critical history of microfinance, will be published by Metropolitan Books/Holt on June 11, 2024. You can pre-order now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Bookshop, Powell’s, and Target.
Praise for WE ARE NOT ABLE TO LIVE IN THE SKY
“Through a dazzling, superbly paced combination of astute history and on-the-ground observation in Sierra Leone, West Africa, Mara Kardas-Nelson holds the claims of microfinance up to the light. I wish that every new idea touted as the solution to the world’s problems had such a thoughtful and compassionate examination.”
Adam Hochschild, bestselling author of American Midnight and King Leopold’s Ghost
Recent work
