Nicole Krauss (born August 18, 1974) is an American author best known for her four novels '' Man Walks into a Room'' (2002), ''

The History of Love ''The History of Love: A Novel'' is the 2005 novel by the American writer Nicole Krauss.The book was a 2006 finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction and won the 2008 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for fiction. An excerpt fro ...

'' (2005), ''

Great House A great house is a large house or mansion with luxurious appointments and great retinues of indoor and outdoor staff. The term is used mainly historically, especially of properties at the turn of the 20th century, i.e., the late Victorian or ...

'' (2010) and '' Forest Dark'' (2017), which have been translated into 35 languages. Her fiction has been published in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', '' Harper's'', ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...

'', and ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

's Best American Novelists Under 40'', and has been collected in '' Best American Short Stories 2003'', '' Best American Short Stories 2008'' and ''Best American Short Stories 2019''. In 2011, Nicole Krauss won an award from the

Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award is an American literary award dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture. Established in 1935 by Cl ...

for ''Great House''. A collection of her short stories, '' To Be a Man'', was published in 2020 and won the Wingate Literary Prize in 2022.

Early life

Krauss, who grew up on

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, was born in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, to a

British Jewish British Jews (often referred to collectively as British Jewry or Anglo-Jewry) are British citizens who identify as Jewish. The number of people who identified as Jews in the United Kingdom rose by just under 4% between 2001 and 2021. History ...

mother and an

American Jewish American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from dias ...

father, an engineer and orthopedic surgeon who grew up partly in Israel. Krauss's maternal grandparents were born in Germany and Ukraine and later emigrated to London. Her paternal grandparents were born in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

and

Slonim Slonim ( be, Сло́нім, russian: Сло́ним, lt, Slanimas, lv, Sloņima, pl, Słonim, yi, סלאָנים, ''Slonim'') is a city in Grodno Region, Belarus, capital of the Slonimski rajon. It is located at the junction of the Ščar ...

, Belarus, met in Israel, and later emigrated to New York. Many of these places are central to Krauss's 2005 novel, ''

'', and the book is dedicated to her grandparents. Krauss, who started writing when she was a teenager, wrote and published mainly poetry until she began her first novel in 2001. In 1987, when Krauss's father traveled with his family to Switzerland to take up a medical fellowship in

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (B ...

, she was enrolled as a boarder in the

International School of Geneva The International School of Geneva (in French: ''Ecole Internationale de Genève''), also known as "Ecolint" or "The International School", is a private, non-profit international school based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1924 in the servic ...

, where she pursued her secondary school studies in Year 9. Krauss's memories of that experience are conveyed in her autobiographical short story "Switzerland", published in 2020. Krauss enrolled in

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

in 1992, and that fall she met

Joseph Brodsky Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (; russian: link=no, Иосиф Александрович Бродский ; 24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian and American poet and essayist. Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), USSR in 1940, ...

who worked closely with her on her poetry over the next three years. He also introduced her to the work of writers such as

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the '' Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the ''Cosmicomi ...

and

Zbigniew Herbert Zbigniew Herbert (; 29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998) was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume titled ...

. In 1999, three years after Brodsky died, Krauss produced a documentary about his work for

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also featuring. The sta ...

. She traveled to St. Petersburg where she stood in the "room and a half" where he grew up, made famous by his essay of that title. Krauss majored in English and graduated with honors, winning several undergraduate prizes for her poetry as well as the Dean's Award for academic achievement. She also curated a reading series with Fiona Maazel at the Russian Samovar, a restaurant in New York City co-founded by Roman Kaplan, Brodsky and

Mikhail Baryshnikov Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Soviet Latvian-born Russian-American dancer, choreograp ...

. In 1996 Krauss was awarded a

Marshall Scholarship The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...

and enrolled in a master's program at

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, I ...

, where she wrote a thesis on the American artist

Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmm ...

. During the second year of her scholarship she attended the

Courtauld Institute The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious specialist c ...

in London, where she received a master's in

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

, specializing in 17th-century Dutch art and writing a thesis on

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally cons ...

Career

In 2002, Doubleday published Krauss's acclaimed first novel, '' Man Walks Into a Room''. A meditation on memory and personal history, solitude and intimacy, the novel won praise from

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay " Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. He ...

and was a finalist for a ''Los Angeles Times'' Book Award. The movie rights to the novel were optioned by

Richard Gere Richard Tiffany Gere ( ; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977) and a starring role in ''Days of Heaven'' (1978). He came to prominence with ...

. Krauss's second novel, ''

'', was first published as an excerpt in ''

'' in 2004, under the title ''The Last Words on Earth''. The novel, published in 2005 in the United States by

W. W. Norton W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. Established in 1923, it has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its Norton Anthologies (particularly ''The Norton A ...

, weaves together the stories of Leo Gursky, an 80-year-old

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

survivor from

, the young Alma Singer who is coping with the death of her father, and the story of a lost manuscript also called ''The History of Love''. The book was a 2006 finalist for the

Orange Prize for Fiction The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously with sponsor names Orange Prize for Fiction (1996–2006 and 2009–12), Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–08) and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014–2017)) is one of the United Kingdom's m ...

and won the 2008

William Saroyan International Prize for Writing The William Saroyan International Prize for Writing is a biennial literary award for fiction and nonfiction in the spirit of William Saroyan by emerging writers. It was established by Stanford University Libraries and the William Saroyan Foundation ...

for fiction. A film of the book, directed by Radu Mihăileanu, was released in 2016. In spring 2007, Krauss was

Holtzbrinck Holtzbrinck Publishing Group () is a Privately held company, privately held German company based in Stuttgart which Holding company, owns publishing companies worldwide. Through Macmillan Publishers, it is one of the Publishing#Book publishing, ...

Distinguished Visitor at the

American Academy in Berlin The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...

. Her third novel, ''

'', connects the stories of four characters to a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. It was named a finalist for the 2010

National Book Award for Fiction The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987 the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but ...

and was shortlisted for the

Orange Prize The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously with sponsor names Orange Prize for Fiction (1996–2006 and 2009–12), Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–08) and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014–2017)) is one of the United Kingdom's m ...

2011 and also won an Award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards in 2011. In 2015 it was reported that Krauss had signed a $4 million deal with

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...

to publish her next two works: a novel, and also a book of short stories. The novel is entitled '' Forest Dark'' and was published in 2017.

Francesca Segal Francesca Segal (born 1980) is a British author and journalist. She was raised in a Jewish community in north-west London where she still lives today. She is best known for her novel, ''The Innocents'', which won several book awards. She is the ...

, writing in the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'', describes it as a "richly layered tale of two lives" that explores "ideas of identity and belonging – and the lure of the Tel Aviv Hilton". The novel's title is derived from the opening lines of

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ' ...

's '' Inferno'', as translated by

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and '' Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely trans ...

."Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost." The collection of short stories, '' To Be a Man'', was published in 2020 and won the 2022 Wingate Literary Prize. In 2020, Krauss was one of three Artists-in-Residence at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

's Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. In 2021, Krauss was the recipient of the

Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature is an annual prize awarded to an outstanding literary work of Jewish interest by an emerging writer. Previously administered by the Jewish Book Council, it is now given in association with the National Li ...

, and the first to receive the newly created Inspiration Award, introduced to mark the 15th anniversary of the prize.

Themes

Krauss's work often explores the relationship between

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

history and identity, the limited capacity of language and communication to produce understanding, loneliness, and memory. These themes are readily appreciable beginning in her first novel '' Man Walks Into a Room'', wherein the protagonist loses years of lived memory while retaining all cognitive function. Playing with tenets of

cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental process ...

and

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

, ''Man Walks Into a Room'' considers the relative roles of lived experience, materiality, and cognitive memory in shaping

personal identity Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person over time. Discussions regarding personal identity typically aim to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time ca ...

and

being In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities e ...

. In a departure from her earlier work, Krauss's later novels progressively question and abandon traditional narrative structure in pursuit of themes more characteristic of late

postmodern literature Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narrator, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This sty ...

. Fragmentation and nonlinear narrative become increasingly present in her work through the use of multiple narrators whose narrative arcs may not directly meet but whose meanings are derived from resonance and pattern similarity (see ''

'', ''

'', '' Forest Dark''). ''The History of Love'' and ''Forest Dark'' employ techniques of

metafiction Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own narrative structure in a way that continually reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and stor ...

and

intertextuality Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody, Gerard Genette (1997) ''Paratexts'p.18/ref>Hal ...

, questioning the veracity of the novel's form and antagonizing the traditional contract between reader and text. The co-protagonist of ''Forest Dark'' in particular is a novelist who shares the author's name and several biographical details, including reflections on a failed marriage to a man with whom the character has two children, considerations of the constraints of fiction, a fascination with

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...

's life and writing, and a preoccupation with "Jewish mysticism, Israel and creation." In an August 2017 interview with ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'', Krauss is quoted saying: This evident blurring of the distinction between

reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, re ...

and

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a tradi ...

seems to reflect a rejection of

objectivism Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievemen ...

in favor of sublime

relativism Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed. Ther ...

, and unites Krauss with the wider gestalt common to her

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...

peers.

Personal life

Krauss lives in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. She has two children, Sasha and Cy, by her former husband, the novelist

Jonathan Safran Foer Jonathan Safran Foer (; born February 21, 1977) is an American novelist. He is known for his novels '' Everything Is Illuminated'' (2002), '' Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'' (2005), '' Here I Am'' (2016), and for his non-fiction works ''Eati ...

. She and Foer married in 2004 and divorced in 2014. Krauss subsequently embarked on a five-year relationship with the Israeli journalist and novelist Gon Ben Ari, whom she met when she granted him an interview several years earlier. Krauss enjoys swimming and dancing.

Bibliography

Novels

* * * *

Short story collections

Short stories

Essays and reporting

* * * *

Review columns

Awards and accolades

* Wingate Literary Prize winner, 2022 *

Inspiration Award, 2021 *

winner, 2011 *

shortlist, 2011 *

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

finalist, 2010 * Selected as one of ''

's'' "20 Under 40" writers to watch, 2010 *

, 2008 *

's Best American Novelists under 40, 2007 * Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (''Best Foreign Book Prize'') (France), 2006 * Medicis Prize shortlist (France), 2006 *

Femina Prize The Prix Femina is a French literary prize created in 1904 by 22 writers for the magazine '' La Vie heureuse'' (today known as '' Femina''). The prize is decided each year by an exclusively female jury. They reward French-language works written ...

shortlist (France), 2006 *

shortlist (U.K.), 2006 *

Edward Lewis Wallant Award In 1962, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award was established at the University of Hartford, in Connecticut, USA by Fran and Irving Waltman. It is presented annually to a writer whose fiction is considered to have significance for American Jews. The award ...

, 2005 * Named "Best and Brightest" writer by ''

'', 2002

Notes and references

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krauss, Nicole 1974 births Living people 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American short story writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American short story writers 21st-century American women writers Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent American people of British-Jewish descent American people of German-Jewish descent American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent American women novelists American women short story writers Foer family International School of Geneva alumni Jewish American novelists Jewish American short story writers Marshall Scholars Novelists from New York (state) Postmodern writers Stanford University alumni Writers from New York City