Aritha van Herk, CM AOE FRSC,[1] is a Canadian writer, critic, editor, public intellectual, and university professor.

Judith, a novel that explores a female protagonist's experiences in both rural and urban Canadian spaces, was the first winner of the Seal First Novel Award (C$50,000) from McClelland and Stewart, which granted the book international distribution throughout North America and Europe.

Van Herk challenged literary conventions with her third novel, No Fixed Address: An Amorous Journey (1986), a parody of the picaresque genre in which underwear saleswoman Arachne Manteia traverses the Canadian prairies in her vintage Mercedes-Benz.

[13] Like No Fixed Address, van Herk's fourth novel Restlessness (1998) is written in an a-typical narrative form, and features another female character on the fly.

In this reversed Sheherazade tale, Dorcas, a nomadic protagonist, divulges her life story to the man whom she has contracted to kill her.

Van Herk is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1997,[18] and has served on juries, including the Governor General's Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

As a university professor she has taught graduate students who have gone on to literary success, including Anita Rau Badami, Thomas Wharton, and Jessica Grant.