Alexandra Anastasia Viets

 Alexandra Anastasia Viets was raised in India, Romania, Israel and Tanzania. She was born in Dallas, Texas. Her undergraduate work at Oberlin College was in Political theory, Asian Studies and Art. Focusing on international literature after college, she worked at Three Continents Press, the first U.S. press to publish the early works of Nobel Prize winners Nagib Mahfouz and Derek Walcott. Her graduate thesis at Columbia University’s School of the Arts was an award-winning screenplay called, “Cotton Mary,” examining the psychological impact of colonialism on a small community of Anglo-Indians in post-independence South India. A staged reading of the screenplay at the New York Foundation for the Arts led to the film’s production in 2000 by Merchant Ivory. Her articles, essays and screenplays have continued to explore the legacies of Empire and global movements. Research on the identity of her Polish-born mother during the second world war has led to a series of personal essays and an upcoming memoir entitled, “After the War.” She is married, with two children, and lives in Maryland by the Potomac river.

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