Sandra Newman is an American writer born on November 6, 1965, in Boston, Massachusetts. She acquired her BA from the Polytechnic of Central London, and holds an MA from the University of East Anglia.

Newman's literary debut, The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done, introduced readers to the American adoptee from Guatemala, Chrysalis Moffat, and was distinguished by its nomination for the 2002 Guardian First Book Award. Her subsequent work, The Country of Ice Cream Star, earned recognition with its inclusion in the nominations for the 2015 Folio Prize and the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, presenting readers with a dystopian United States through the eyes of its young protagonist, Ice Cream Fifteen Star.

The author's innovative narrative style continued with The Heavens (2019), which interweaves the story of a modern-day woman with her nightly dreams set in Elizabethan England, where she becomes Emilia Lanier, a Jewish poet in the circle of William Shakespeare. The novel garnered praise as a "strange and beautiful hybrid" by The New York Times Book Review.

The Men (2022), Newman's controversial fifth novel, portrays a world without individuals bearing a Y chromosome, sparking debates across critical platforms regarding the representation of trans individuals. Despite mixed reviews, the novel proved to be a magnet for discussion about gender and society.

In the recent work Julia (2023), Newman revisits George Orwell's classic dystopia in 1984 through the perspective of Julia, Winston Smith's love interest. The novel has received critical acclaim, being hailed as a "stunning look into what happens when a person of strength faces the worst in humanity" and a "masterpiece" in derivative art.