About Persia

Persia Walker is an American novelist, journalist and former diplomat. Her historical crime fiction includes Harlem Redux, later republished as Lyrics of a Blackbird, and the Lanie Price mystery series, set in 1920s Harlem. Her short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Mystery Writers of America anthologies.

Simon & Schuster published Harlem Redux in 2002. The novel was reviewed by the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and other publications, and Walker received the Go On Girl! Book Club’s Author of the Year Award. Black Orchid Blues, published by Akashic Books in 2011, was a finalist for the 2012 Nero Award. Her fiction has since been discussed in academic work on black crime fiction and the literary afterlife of the Harlem Renaissance.

Walker grew up in New York City, the granddaughter of Virginia sharecroppers and the only child of a single mother with a ninth-grade education. She attended the original High School of Performing Arts, Swarthmore College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her journalism career included The Associated Press in Washington and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, where she lived for fifteen years.

Later, Walker joined the U.S. State Department and served as a diplomat in Brazil, Poland and Washington, D.C. She now travels and writes full-time. She is a member of the UK’s Crime Writers’ Association and Crime Writers of Color.