Siri Hustvedt is the author of seven novels including the international besteller What I Loved, The Blazing World, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, and Memories of the Future, as well as five collections of essays: Yonder, Mysteries of the Rectangle: Essays on Painting, A Plea for Eros, Living, Thinking, Looking and A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women. She has also published a poetry collection, Reading To You, and the memoir The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves. Hustvedt has won the International Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities and the European Essay Prize for her essay The Delusions of Certainty. She is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and has written on art for the New York Times and the Daily Telegraph. Born in Minnesota, Siri Hustvedt lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Memoir, psychoanalysis, feminist theory and literary criticism
combine in a thoughtful essay collection . . . Now, as issues of
surrogacy and trans motherhood pose fresh challenges, feminism's
confrontation with the issue feels newly urgent. Siri Hustvedt
joins the fray with a mixture of directness and obliqueness. She
takes on motherhood from every direction, combining memoir with
ethnography, the history of science and psychoanalysis, literary
and art criticism. -- Lara Feigel * Guardian *
American novelist and feminist philosopher Siri Hustvedt is a
wonderful essayist, equally at ease discussing the thoughts of
Plato or the lyrics of Tom Waits. Her new collection is replete
with personal history and recollection, and sparkles with small
descriptive gems. -- Martin Chilton * Independent *
Dizzyingly flexible, deeply human, often funny, Mothers,
Fathers, and Others blasts aside our preconceptions and urges
us to see the world as it is. -- Emily Watkins * i *
In precise yet luxuriant prose Hustvedt uses her family history to
explore questions of memory and identity. -- Sophie McBain * New
Statesman *
Ranging from portraits of her family, through female artists and
authors, to the sometimes disturbing eruptions of the male psyche,
this is an extremely well-written exploration of the hinterland of
a modern feminist. More than once, I found myself comparing her
analyses to Socratic dialogues, and there can be no higher praise
than that. -- Chris Nancollas * Tablet *
Mothers, Fathers, and Others, showcases a wonderfully
relaxed erudition. Blending family memoir and feminist philosophy,
its subjects include misogyny, motherhood and what we inherit from
our parents -- Alex Peake-Tomkinson * The i *
Siri Hustvedt takes feminist discourse to a new level . . . a
powerful collection with an impressive variety of disciplines
through whose prism the themes of art, motherhood, neuroscience,
misogyny and sex are revealed. It is an engaging and educational
read that makes a valuable contribution to contemporary feminist
discourse. -- Elizaveta Kolesova * The Upcoming *
Another outstanding compilation of essays from Hustvedt. As in her
previous standout collections, the author shares personal, familial
stories as well as incisive ruminations on a breadth of literary,
political, arcane, and germane subjects . . . Although each essay
is a stand-alone piece, their cumulative effect is staggering.
Themes related to sexual hierarchies abound . . . The author, one
of our most appealing literary polymaths, quotes innumerable
resources, and she maintains a pleasingly nuanced balance between
striking originality and intellectual synthesis . . . Brilliant and
utterly transfixing. * Kirkus Reviews *
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