Sara Suleri Goodyear

Sara Goodyear (née Suleri; June 12, 1953 – March 20, 2022) was a Pakistan-born American author and professor of English at Yale University, where her fields of study and teaching included Romantic and Victorian poetry and an interest in Edmund Burke. Her special concerns included postcolonial literature and theory, contemporary cultural criticism, literature, and law. She was a founding editor of the Yale Journal of Criticism, and served on the editorial boards of YJC, The Yale Review, and Transition.

Early life and education

Suleri was born in Karachi, Dominion of Pakistan (now Pakistan), one of six children, to a Welsh mother, Mair Jones, an English professor, and a Pakistani father, Z. A. Suleri (1913–1999), a notable political journalist, conservative writer, author, and the Pakistan Movement activist regarded as one of the pioneers of print journalism in Pakistan, and authored various history and political books on Pakistan as well as Islam in the Indian subcontinent.

She had her early education in London and attended secondary school in Lahore. She received her B.A. at Kinnaird College, also in Lahore, in 1974. Two years later, she was awarded an M.A. from Punjab University, and went on to graduate with a PhD from Indiana University Bloomington in 1983.

Career and major works

Suleri taught for two years at "Williams College" in Williamstown, Massachusetts, before she moved to Yale and began teaching there in 1983. Suleri was a founding editor of the Yale Journal of Criticism.

Suleri's 1989 memoir, Meatless Days, is an exploration of the complex interweaving of national history and personal biography which was widely and respectfully reviewed.