Sarah Henstra

Sarah Henstra is a Canadian author and academic who won the Governor General's Literary Award for English-language fiction in 2018 for The Red Word, her debut novel for adults. Set on a university campus during the early 1990s, The Red Word is a deeply researched and morally complex novel about rape culture, feminist activism, and the dangerous alliances formed in the war between a fraternity and a women's studies collective. The Red Word was widely praised for its unflinching treatment of sexual violence, its intellectual rigour, and its ability to inhabit multiple perspectives without simplifying the ethical questions it raises. The novel draws on ancient Greek mythology, particularly the myth of Agamemnon, as a structuring device. Henstra is also the author of the young adult novel Mad Miss Mimic (2014). She has a PhD in English and teaches at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University). Her academic interests include Victorian literature, feminist theory, and the intersections of literary form and ethics.