Tiphanie Yanique (born September 20, 1978) from Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, is a Caribbean American fiction writer, poet and essayist who lives in New York.

Shortly after graduating, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in Literatures in English and Creative Writing at The University of the West Indies for which she conducted research on Caribbean women writers, such as Merle Hodge and Erna Brodber in Trinidad and Tobago.

[6] She was an assistant professor of writing at The New School, where she taught undergraduate and graduate students, and won the 2015 Distinguished Teaching Award.

Yanique's debut collection, How to Escape from a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories, was published by Graywolf Press in 2010, and has received praise from journals including the Caribbean Review of Books,[10] The Boston Globe,[11] and O, The Oprah Magazine.

[15] Her first novel Land of Love and Drowning was published by Riverhead Books in 2014, and was described by Publishers Weekly as "an affecting narrative of the Virgin Islands that pulses with life, vitality, and a haunting evocation of place",[16] and the reviewer for BookPage wrote: "Yanique’s vivid writing, echoing Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez, builds a whole world within its language and cadence.

"[17] She received the Academy of American Poets Prize in 2000, and has had residencies with Bread Loaf,[18] Callaloo, Squaw Valley and the Cropper Foundation for Caribbean Writers.

[21] In 2011, Yanique won the Bocas Fiction Prize for Caribbean Literature with her collection How to Escape from a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories, and the National Book Foundation named her as one of their "5 Under 35" honorees,[22] an award that celebrates five young fiction writers selected by past National Book Award winners and finalists.