Siri Hustvedt, a novelist and scholar, has a PhD in English literature and is a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. She is the author of a book of poems, seven novels, four collections of essays, and two works of nonfiction. She has published papers in various academic and scientific journals and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, the European Charles Veillon Essay Prize, an American Academy of the Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction for The Blazing World, which was also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
PRAISE FOR THE BLAZING WORLD LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
"The Blazing World offers a spirited romp...constructed as a
Nabokovian cat's cradle....Hustvedt's portrait of the artist as a
middle-aged widow is searingly fresh. It's rare to encounter a
female protagonist who throws her weight around quite so
grandiloquently as Harriet Burden, a heroine who is--well, more
like the hero of a Philip Roth or a Saul Bellow novel."-- "New York
Times Book Review"
"The Blazing World is poundingly alive with ideas, personalities,
conviction, fear, fakery, ambition, and sorrow. The reading mind is
set on high, happy alert."-- "The New York Journal of Books"
"The Blazing World is unique and recognizably so, a bracing
examination of the act of creation, of fame and identity, gender
bias and feminism, love and desire, psychology and philosophy. . .
. Full of life and ideas and intellectual prowess, it's also a
compelling story with richly drawn characters. . . .[An]
extraordinary puzzle."-- "The Miami Herald"
"The Blazing World is Siri Hustvedt's best novel yet, an
electrifying work with a titanic, poignantly flawed protagonist.
Harriet Burden's rage, turbulence and neediness leap off these
pages in a skillfully orchestrated chorus of voices both dark and
brilliant."-- "The Washington Post"
"A glorious mashup of storytelling and scholarship. . . .[The
Blazing World's] touching conclusion 'blazes hot and bright' from
the perspective of an aura reader, Harriet's caretaker, whose
vision of the artist's work is at once spiritually charged and
whimsical."-- "The San Francisco Chronicle"
"Dazzling. . . ingeniously constructed. . . . The Blazing World is
a serious, sometimes profound book, tackling head-on the knotty
issues of identity and sense of self, and our unconscious ideas
about gender and celebrity. It offers an exhilarating reading
experience for anyone willing to meet its challenge."-- "Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette"
"Ingeniously and energetically put together. . . . The Blazing
World never runs out of steam in dispensing ideas and peeling back
layers of truth."-- "Chicago Tribune"
"Larger-than-life Harry reads vociferously, loves fervently, and
overflows with intellectual and creative energy....Hustvedt
dissects the art world with ironic insight....This is a funny, sad,
through-provoking, and touching portrait of a woman who is blazing
with postfeminist fury and propelled by artistic audacity.--
"Publishers Weekly"
"This is feminism in the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir's The
Second Sex, or Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: richly
complex, densely psychological, dazzlingly nuanced. And at the same
time, the book is a spectacularly good read. Its storytelling is
magnificent, its characters vivid, its plot gripping; it's rare
that a novel of ideas can be so much fun."-- "Slate"
Densely brilliant, but terrifyingly clever too... you don't need a
PhD in Kierkegaard to enjoy Hustvedt's writing, and it's a pleasure
to feel your brain whirring as it forges links and finds the cracks
across differing accounts. Even if The Blazing World is about
ambiguity and mutability in everything from authorship to gender to
memory, Hustvedt's text is carefully, impressively constructed:
she's as convincing in each fictional voice as Harriet is in her
masks.-- "The Independent"
In certain respects, The Blazing World is a didactic novel,
presenting arguments about the place of gender in American cultural
life, yet it avoids preaching or settled judgments by putting at
its center a figure whose strongly held beliefs are undermined by
the hazards of real life. The effect is more fluid and nuanced than
any scholarly study or political diatribe could be.-- "The Wall
Street Journal"
Siri Hustvedt has earned her reputation as a brilliant thinker and
articulate writer. This is not her first work of fiction, and The
Blazing World is strong proof that her talents are unmatched in the
genre. . . a delightful, quirky story that shares many truths about
women in the arts, and the struggles they encounter in rising to
fame.-- "Seattle Post-Intelligencer"
The absence of women artists in the history of painting is an old
feminist topic, but it is one The Blazing World approaches
head-on.-- "The Guardian"
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FLAVORWIRE * "Richly explored...and, when art is the subject,
touchingly personal...It's hard to overstate the pleasure and the
comfort that such demystification provides...it does indeed make
the world feel larger, more expansive, more alive to the
touch."
--New York Times Book Review "Insightful."
--Vanity Fair "A wide-ranging, irreverent, and absorbing meditation
on thinking, knowing, and being."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Erudite and intellectually
sophisticated...Hustvedt is beguiling and wholly present in each
lively, first-person, thrillingly interdisciplinary narrative."
--Booklist (starred review) "Canonical . . . A dense, succinct
overview of the mind/body problem . . . Conveys the wide range of
Hustvedt's reading as she focuses on the interstices between
people; between disciplines; and between concepts such as art and
science, truth and fiction, feeling and perception."
--Publishers Weekly "Hustvedt has provided us with an impressive
collection that celebrates critical thinking."
--The Guardian "We are fortunate to have Hustvedt voicing doubt so
intelligently."
--Financial Times "Searing."
--Elle "Erudite."
--Vulture
PRAISE FOR SIRI HUSTVEDT'S NONFICTION "A brilliant explorer of
brain and mind."
--Oliver Sacks "No one writing about art today comes closer than
Siri Hustvedt to the elusive strangeness of a great painting."
--Calvin Tomkins "[Siri Hustvedt] brings both knowledge and an
artist's insight to the discussion of memory, language, and
personal identity... It is Hustvedt's gift to write with exemplary
clarity of what is by necessity unclear."
--Hilary Mantel "[Hustvedt's] responses to paintings are both
visceral and intellectual...At their best, her essays combine the
insights of her intuitive eye with an extensive knowledge of
Western painting."
--San Francisco Chronicle "Armed with her great gift for
elucidation, the novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt has
omnivorously devoured and digested complex debates from
neuroscience, psychiatry, philosophy and psychoanalysis and
journeyed into the mind/body problem."
--George Makari
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