A long hair Asian woman in front of a bookshelf
Courtesy of the poet

Sasha Pimentel was born in Manila, Philippines and raised in the United States and Saudi Arabia. She is the author of two collections of poetry: For Want of Water (Beacon Press, 2017), winner of the National Poetry Series and of the Helen C. Smith Award; and Insides She Swallowed (West End, 2010), winner of the American Book Award. She has published poems and essays in the New York Times, PBS News Hour, ESPN, American Poetry Review, New England Review, and Literary Hub, and other literary publications. 

Pimentel was the 2018-2019 Picador Guest Professor in Literature at Institut für Amerikanistik at Universität Leipzig in Germany. She is a winner of the University of Texas System’s Board of Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award.

Pimentel is an associate professor in the bilingual Department of Creative Writing, and associated faculty in the Chicano Studies Program, at the University of Texas at El Paso.