Randy Boyagoda

Soharn Randy Boyagoda (born 1976) is a Canadian novelist, essayist, and literary critic. He is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and the director of the Jackman Humanities Institute. He is the author of the novels Governor of the Northern Province (2006), Beggar's Feast (2011), Original Prin (2018), Dante's Indiana (2021), and Lords of Serendipity (2026), and of a biography of the Canadian-American Catholic intellectual Richard John Neuhaus (2015). The Walrus described Boyagoda's novel Original Prin as "deeply Catholic and deeply funny", and The American Conservative described him as "one of the best satirical writers today." His book Governor of the Northern Province was a finalist for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Beggar's Feast was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award and selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Boyagoda has written book reviews, essays, and criticism on literature, Catholicism, publishing, technology, and public life for publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail, The Times Literary Supplement, The Walrus, Harper's Magazine, and The Paris Review.