Ashley Hope Pérez

Ashley Hope Pérez is a literary scholar, novelist, youth advocate, and educator. Across these areas, she explores the ethical implications of how we tell, read, mediate, and interpret narratives. Her recent book of literary criticism, Deformative Fictions: Narrative Ethics and Cruelty in Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature (2024), considers how difficult works of fiction disrupt readers’ attempts to make sense of narrated cruelty, what we can do in response, and how these uncomfortable encounters matter for our understanding of narrative ethics.

As one of the most frequently banned writers in the United States since 2021, Pérez uses her insights and experiences to advocate for students and their right to learn, grow, and access diverse literature. Her anthology Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights (2025) brings together banned writers to share their experiences, inform readers about the works of literature disappearing from library shelves, and empower them with ways to fight back. Her newly designed course, CS 4021: Banned Books and the Cost of Censorship, fulfills the GE Citizenship for a Just and Diverse World theme. In 2024, she secured a $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to fund the Unite to Read Project at The Ohio State University.

(Website: ashleyperez.com)