Sareeta Domingo (1980–2025): A Life in Words.

Sareeta Domingo’s sudden passing has left the literary world stunned. Writers, publishers, readers, and colleagues have all spoken of their loss, remembering her not only as a gifted author but as a nurturing editor who opened doors for others. Her death was first shared by family and soon echoed by publishers and the broader community, with tributes highlighting both her artistry and her generosity.

Domingo built a career that balanced writing with publishing. As an author, she explored themes of love, intimacy, and belonging, crafting stories that revealed the emotional lives of her characters with warmth and honesty. Her novel If I Don’t Have You (Jacaranda, 2020) was celebrated for its portrayal of love complicated by ambition and personal history, while The Nearness of You (originally published as The Three of Us, 2016) offered another layered exploration of human connection.

She also wrote for younger audiences under the name S.A. Domingo, including titles such as Love, Secret Santa, which captured the immediacy and tenderness of teenage romance. Across genres, her voice was consistent: attentive to nuance, unwilling to flatten characters into stereotypes, and deeply invested in the ways love shapes identity.

Her professional life extended beyond her own writing. Earlier in 2025, she was named Publishing Director at Jacaranda Books, a role that reflected her stature in the industry. Colleagues described her as a fierce advocate for diverse voices in British publishing.

She was instrumental in commissioning, editing, and promoting work by writers who might otherwise have been overlooked, and the tributes following her passing consistently emphasized her mentorship and advocacy.

Community response to her death was immediate and heartfelt. Family members described her passing as sudden, and peers in the publishing and bookselling worlds responded with shock and sadness. Independent presses, literary organizations, and fellow authors paid tribute to her ability to balance creative brilliance with generosity of spirit.

Many spoke of her as someone who gave freely of her time and encouragement, often making others feel seen and valued in an industry that can be unwelcoming to underrepresented voices.

Sareeta Domingo’s legacy rests on more than her published works.

Her fiction endures as an archive of tenderness

stories in which intimacy, vulnerability, and everyday love are given their full dramatic weight. At the same time, her work as an editor and publishing leader ensured that other stories reached readers who needed them.

She leaves behind a community of writers and readers shaped by her influence, and though her life was cut short, the space she created for Black British storytelling will continue to resonate.

Sareeta Domingo will be remembered as both an author of immense sensitivity and an editor of immense generosity. In her work and in her life, she embodied the conviction that stories matter that they shape how we love, how we live, and how we are seen.