Siri Hustvedt

Siri Hustvedt
Born	(1955-02-19) February 19, 1955 Northfield, Minnesota
Nationality	American
Education	B.A. in history, Ph.D. in English
Alma mater	St. Olaf College and Columbia University
Occupation	Writer
Years active	Since 1983
Known for	Novels, poetry, short stories
Spouse	Paul Auster
Children	Sophie Auster
Parent(s)	Lloyd Hustvedt and Ester Vegan
Website	www.sirihustvedt.net

Siri Hustvedt (born February 19, 1955) is an American writer. She has made her name mainly as a novelist, but has also produced a book of poetry, and a number of short stories and essays. She is the author of The Blindfold (1992), The Enchantment of Lily Dahl (1996), What I Loved (2003), The Sorrows of an American (2008), and The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves (2010)

Background

Hustvedt was born in Northfield, Minnesota. Her father Lloyd Hustvedt was a professor of Scandinavian literature, and her mother Ester Vegan emigrated from Norway at the age of thirty. She holds a B.A. in history from St. Olaf College and a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University; her thesis on Charles Dickens was entitled Figures of Dust: A Reading of Our Mutual Friend.

Like her husband, Paul Auster, Hustvedt employs a use of repetitive themes or symbols throughout her work. Most notably the use of certain types of voyeurism, often linking objects of the dead to characters who are relative strangers to the deceased characters (most notable in various facits in her novels The Blindfold and The Enchantment of Lily Dahl) and the exploration of identity. She has also written essays on art history and theory (see "Essay collections") and painting and painters often appear in her fiction, most notably, perhaps, in her novel, What I Loved.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and their daughter, singer and actress Sophie Auster.

Works

Novels

• The Blindfold (1992)
• The Enchantment of Lily Dahl (1996)
• What I Loved (2003)
• The Sorrows of an American (2008)
• The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves (2010)

Poetry

• Reading to You (1983)

Essay collections

• Yonder (1998)
• Mysteries of the Rectangle: Essays on Painting (2005)
• A Plea for Eros (2005)

External links

• Siri Hustvedt's Website
• Audio: Siri Hustvedt at the Key West Literary Seminar, 2007
• Interview with Siri Hustvedt in Identity Theory
• Article about Siri Hustvedt in Telegraph
• Video conference from Baruch College, CUNY (2005), Siri Hustvedt gives a reading of her work in progress The Sorrows of an American
• Audio clip of Siri Hustvedt in The Writer's Craft, Eye on Books
• Audio clip of Siri Hustvedt talking about her novel What I Loved in The Writer's Craft, Eye on Books
• Siri Hustvedt video interview (Dropping Knowledge) in YouTube
• Siri Hustvedt migraine blog in NYT