Justin Haynes

Justin Haynes was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago and later moved to Brooklyn, NY as a teenager. His debut novel, Ibis (2025) has been awarded the PEN Open Book Award, the L.A. Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for fiction. It has been shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and the Hurston/Wright Zora Award for Debut Fiction. In 2026, Haynes was named Author of the Year by Georgia Writers Association in the First Fiction category. He lives in Atlanta and teaches English and creative writing at Oglethorpe University.