Roshan Sethi is a writer, director, and practicing oncologist. He is the cocreator of The Resident, which ran for six seasons on Fox. His directorial debut, 7 Days, won the Independent Spirit Award for best first feature. He subsequently directed World’s Best for Disney+ and cowrote the abortion drama Call Jane, which premiered at Sundance in 2022. His third film as a director, A Nice Indian Boy, recently premiered at SXSW to rave reviews. His next film, The Surgeon, starring Michelle Yeoh and Martin Freeman, is forthcoming. The Simp is his debut novel.
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“A satire of the unending demands, learned helplessness and stubborn racism of Hollywood elites…. Beneath the novel’s deadpan, stinging depictions of this rarefied Tinseltown milieu, “The Simp” also explores the painful but, in Sethi’s hands, bleakly comic ways race and colonial history collide with the dream of fame…. [An] exceedingly smart and funny novel.”—Sam Lipsyte, New York Times Book Review
"Inspired by a comically unreasonable real-life advertisement published by a wealthy New York art world family seeking a personal assistant to “make life easier for the couple in every way possible,” this novel follows an unemployed actor named Raj who gets hired, on false pretenses, for a similar role by an unnamed “Hollywood Family” in Los Angeles. Sethi, a filmmaker and practicing oncologist, weaves into this deadpan satire a sobering look at the impacts of racism and colonialism on the pursuit of fame."--New York Times
“An immersive, literary page-turner that offers timely commentary on race and a peek into the lives of the Hollywood elite…The voice is witty, sharp, and sarcastic with great pacing, providing glimpses into Raj’s past and a slow reveal of everyone’s secrets.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“Whip-smart…a laugh-out-loud tale of a Hollywood hustler.”—Publishers Weekly
“Raj never intended to be the assistant to a rich, powerful, and often-absurd family of Hollywood heavyweights. But his own dreams of being an actor aren’t panning out, and working for the H family has got to be better than slinging frozen yogurt—right? Perhaps, but the deeper he falls into their world, the more he finds that it’s not at all what he expected, and perhaps he’s been cast in the most challenging role of his life after all.”—Town & Country, The 46 Best Books of Summer 2026
"Funny, poignant, and positively delightful. Sethi's first novel has all the pleasure of an artisanal chocolate—an enticing exterior, a sneaky sophistication, and once you get inside, a shocking and enlivening surprise."—Graham Moore, author of The Last Days of Night
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