About

Holly Berkley Fletcher

I contain multitudes.

I grew up a white American child in Kenya. A doubting, struggling, fearful Christian with bold, unwavering, evangelical missionary parents. As an adult, I’ve straddled the worlds of conservative Christianity and liberal academia, red states and blue states, flyover country and elite coasts, America and Africa. I can navigate a cocktail party or a tent revival, a mansion or a mud hut, in English or Swahili. I tear up at Oh Say Can You See and Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu. I used to feel I was without a culture, without a true home, that I was a zebra without stripes, to use a traditional African metaphor. These days, I just embrace the ambiguity. It turns out we’re all oddballs when you get down to it.

Professionally, I’m equally confused. My first act was as an academic historian of American history, specializing in the 19th century temperance movement.

My second act was as an Africa analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency for 19 years.

My third act is as a writer, essayist, and observer of American religion and of life in general. My book, The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism (Broadleaf, 2025) is available wherever books are sold.

Because I just can’t pick a lane, I also make collage art and parody videos.

Cover art by me.