Jonah Straus

Straus Literary

Jonah Straus is the founder of Straus Literary, a boutique literary agency based in San Francisco. He specializes in literary fiction, often with an international or multicultural outlook, as well as journalism, history, narrative nonfiction, and the culinary arts. 

Jonah got his start in the warehouse at Atrium Publishers Group, an independent book distributor in Northern California, and went on to hold positions in production, editorial, sales, and marketing at several publishers in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

He moved to New York in 2005, where he worked in marketing for arts and literary programs, including the Selected Shorts NPR reading series at Symphony Space. He established Straus Literary in 2007 and moved the agency back to San Francisco in 2013 while maintaining a regular presence in New York.

Fiction clients include Lambda award winner Achy Obejas (Days of Awe, Ballantine), National Book Award winner John Keene (Counternarratives, New Directions), David Hollander (L.I.E., Ballantine), Gregory Brown (The Lowering Days, HarperCollins), Saramago Prize winner Adriana Lisboa (Crow Blue, Bloomsbury), celebrated Canadian writer Clark Blaise (Lunar Attractions, Doubleday), and Man Asian Prize finalist Eric Gamalinda (The Descartes Highlands, Akashic).

Nonfiction writers include health care journalist Sarah DiGregorio (Taking Care, HarperCollins), Brazilian bestseller Drauzio Varella (Lockdown, Simon & Schuster), environmental journalist Michael Parks (Grass People, forthcoming, Bloomsbury), biographer Mark Eisner (Neruda, Ecco) and UN spokesperson Gordon Weiss (The Cage, Random House) as well as a select group of chefs, artisans, and food and travel writers.