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Ruth Ozeki

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Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozeki signing books at Hotel la Rose in Santa Rosa, March 21, 2013.
Ruth Ozeki signing books at Hotel la Rose in Santa Rosa, March 21, 2013.
Born (1956-03-12) March 12, 1956 (age 68)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation
NationalityAmerican and Canadian
Alma materSmith College
Website
www.ruthozeki.com

Ruth Ozeki (born March 12, 1956) is an American-Canadian author, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. Her books and films, including the novels My Year of Meats (1998), All Over Creation (2003), A Tale for the Time Being (2013), and The Book of Form and Emptiness (2021) seek to integrate personal narrative and social issues, and deal with themes relating to science, technology, environmental politics, race, religion, war and global popular culture. Her novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. She teaches creative writing at Smith College where she is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities in the Department of English Language and Literature.[1][2]

Early life and education

Ozeki was born on March 12, 1956. She grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, and is the daughter of the American linguist, anthropologist and Mayanist scholar, Floyd Lounsbury, and linguist Masako Yokoyama. In 1980, she graduated from Smith College with a B.A. in English and Asian Studies, and upon graduation, she received a Japanese Ministry of Education Fellowship (Monbukagakusho) to do graduate work at Nara University.[3]

Career

Film and television

In 1985, Ozeki moved to New York City and began working as an art director and production designer[4] for low-budget horror movies, including Mutant Hunt (1987)[5] and Robot Holocaust (1986).[6] In 1988, she began working for Telecom Staff, a Japanese production company, coordinating, producing and directing documentary-style programs for Japanese TV. During this time, she directed episodes of See the World by Train[7] and co-produced the pilot for the TV documentary miniseries Fishing With John (1991),[8] starring musician John Lurie and director Jim Jarmusch. Ozeki's first film, Body of Correspondence (1994), made in collaboration with artist Marina Zurkow won the New Visions Award at the San Francisco Film Festival[9] and was aired on PBS.[10] Her second film, Halving the Bones (1995), tells the autobiographical story of Ozeki's journey as she brings her grandmother's remains home from Japan. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Montreal World Film Festival, and the Margaret Mead Film Festival, among others.[11][12]

Writing

Ozeki's debut novel My Year of Meats (Viking Penguin, 1998), based on her work in Japanese television, tells the story of two women, living on opposite sides of the world, whose lives are connected by a TV cooking show.[13] My Year of Meats was awarded the 1998 Kiriyama Prize and the 1998 Imus/Barnes & Noble American Book Award.[14] Her second novel, All Over Creation (Viking Penguin, 2003), focuses on a potato-farming family in Idaho and an environmental activist group opposing the use of GMOs.[15] Author Michael Pollan called All Over Creation "a smart compelling novel about a world we don't realize we live in."[16] All Over Creation received the 2003 WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction and the 2004 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

Ozeki's 2013 novel, A Tale for the Time Being (Viking Penguin) tells the story of a mysterious diary written by a troubled schoolgirl in Tokyo that's washed ashore on the Pacific Northwest coast of Canada in the wake of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The diary is discovered by a novelist named Ruth, who becomes obsessed with discovering the girl's fate. Junot Diaz called this novel Ozeki's "absolute best—bewitching, intelligent, hilarious, and heartbreaking, often on the same page."[17] The novel was awarded the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, and named the first recipient of the 2015 Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award (founded by the Leo Tolstoy Museum & Estate and Samsung Electronics) for the Best Foreign Novel of the 21st century.[18] The book has received several other national and international awards, and has been published in more than thirty countries.

In her first work of personal nonfiction, The Face: A Time Code (Restless Books, 2016), Ozeki writes about a three-hour observation experiment, in which she studied her reflection in a mirror and kept a log of thoughts that arose during that time.[19] The Face: A Time Code was published as part of Restless Books' groundbreaking series, The Face, featuring authors Tash Aw and Chris Abani.[20]

In 2021, Ozeki released her fourth novel The Book of Form and Emptiness.[21][22] About a 14-year-old boy who begins to hear voices emanating from things in the house after the death of his father, the book won the Women's Prize for Fiction in June 2022.[23][24]

Teaching

From 1982 through 1985, Ozeki taught in the English department at Kyoto Sangyo University and founded an English language school in Kyoto, Japan.[25] Currently, she is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities in the Department of English Language and Literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.[26]

Zen

Ozeki was ordained as a Soto Zen Buddhist priest in 2010; she practices Zen Buddhism with Zoketsu Norman Fischer. She is the editor of the website Everyday Zen.[27]

Personal life

Ozeki divides her time among Northampton, Massachusetts; New York, New York; and Cortes Island, British Columbia. She is married to the German-Canadian environmental artist Oliver Kellhammer, who teaches on the faculty of Sustainable Systems at Parsons School of Design in New York City.[28][29]

Her legal name is Ruth Diana Lounsbury. Ozeki is a nom de plume, taken from her former boyfriend's last name, and chosen to better represent her mixed-race heritage.[30]

Awards and honors (selected)

Works

Novels

  • My Year of Meats. Penguin. 1998. ISBN 978-0-14-028046-3.
  • All Over Creation. Penguin. 2003. ISBN 978-0-14-200389-3.
  • A Tale for the Time Being. Viking. 2013. ISBN 978-0-67-002663-0.
  • The Book of Form and Emptiness. Viking. 2021. ISBN 978-0-399-56364-5.

Autobiography

Films

Anthologies (selected)

References

  1. ^ "Ruth Ozeki | Penguin Random House". www.penguinrandomhouse.com. Archived from the original on March 26, 2019. Retrieved March 27, 2017.
  2. ^ "Where We Are for the Time Being with Ruth Ozeki - Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. Archived from the original on July 27, 2018. Retrieved March 27, 2017.
  3. ^ "long bio". Ozekiland. Archived from the original on April 23, 2019. Retrieved April 2, 2016.
  4. ^ "Ruth Ozeki Lounsbury". IMDb. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  5. ^ Gianasi, Rick; Fahey, Mary; Reynaldi, Ron; Vrenon, Taunie (June 1, 1987). "Mutant Hunt". IMDb. Archived from the original on March 25, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  6. ^ Culf, Norris; Hartstein, Nadine; Ornsteiner, J. Buzz Von; Delora, Jennifer (January 20, 1987). "Robot Holocaust". IMDb. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  7. ^ "See The World By Train". TELECOM STAFF (in Japanese). Archived from the original on March 25, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  8. ^ Lurie, John; Tyler, Nik; Webb, Robb (January 1, 2000). "Fishing with John". IMDb. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  9. ^ "Body of Correspondence | San Francisco Film Festival". history.sffs.org. Archived from the original on April 18, 2022. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  10. ^ "Body of Correspondence | ITVS". itvs.org. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  11. ^ "WOMEN MAKE MOVIES | Halving the Bones". www.wmm.com. Archived from the original on May 24, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  12. ^ "Sundance Film Festival (1996)". IMDb. Archived from the original on February 19, 2017. Retrieved March 27, 2017.
  13. ^ My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki | PenguinRandomHouse.com. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  14. ^ "Talk Radio Personality Imus Behind Richest Book Awards". tribunedigital-chicagotribune. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  15. ^ All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki | PenguinRandomHouse.com. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  16. ^ Noble, Barnes &. "All over Creation". Barnes & Noble. Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  17. ^ Noble, Barnes &. "A Tale for the Time Being". Barnes & Noble. Archived from the original on March 27, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  18. ^ "Ruth Ozeki Wins 2015 Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award". PublishersWeekly.com. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  19. ^ "The Face: A Time Code". Restless Books. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  20. ^ "The Face". Restless Books. Archived from the original on February 6, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  21. ^ Harrison, M John (October 6, 2021). "The Book of Form & Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki review – a Zen chorus". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 18, 2021. Retrieved November 18, 2021.
  22. ^ Boyagoda, Randy (October 22, 2021). "The Book of Form & Emptiness — a story about storytelling". Financial Times. Archived from the original on November 18, 2021. Retrieved November 18, 2021.
  23. ^ Shaffi, Sarah (June 15, 2022). "Ruth Ozeki's 'complete joy' of a novel wins Women's prize for fiction". The Guardian. Archived from the original on July 13, 2022. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
  24. ^ "The Book of Form and Emptiness: Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022, book by Ruth Ozeki". Text Publishing. September 28, 2021. Archived from the original on August 15, 2022. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
  25. ^ Lundquist, Molly. "A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki - Author Biography". www.litlovers.com. Archived from the original on March 27, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  26. ^ "Ruth Ozeki | Smith College". www.smith.edu. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  27. ^ "Everyday Zen". Ozekiland. Archived from the original on March 27, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  28. ^ "Ruth Ozeki". Goodreads. Archived from the original on March 18, 2017. Retrieved March 27, 2017.
  29. ^ "Oliver Kellhammer". www.newschool.edu. Archived from the original on March 28, 2017. Retrieved March 27, 2017.
  30. ^ Alex Laughlin (May 5, 2017). "How Ruth Ozeki renamed herself". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 26, 2017. Retrieved June 18, 2022.
  31. ^ "Announcing the 2022 winner of the Women's Prize!". June 15, 2022. Archived from the original on June 15, 2022. Retrieved June 15, 2022.
  32. ^ Guzeva, Alexandra (October 29, 2015). "American writer honored with Yasnaya Polyana literary award". Russia Beyond The Headlines. Archived from the original on March 22, 2017. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  33. ^ Chamberlain, Adrian. "Cortez Island author Ruth Ozeki earns IMPAC award nomination". Times Colonist. Archived from the original on March 29, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
  34. ^ "Dos Passos Prize". Archived from the original on May 11, 2015. Retrieved December 19, 2014.
  35. ^ Kirsten Reach (January 14, 2014). "NBCC finalists announced". Melville House Books. Archived from the original on January 8, 2017. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  36. ^ "Announcing the National Book Critics Awards Finalists for Publishing Year 2013". National Book Critics Circle. January 14, 2014. Archived from the original on January 15, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  37. ^ "Ruth Ozeki Wins the Medici Book Club Prize for A Tale for the Time Being - News About Penguin Books USA". www.penguin.com. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  38. ^ "Novelist and Zen priest Ruth Ozeki wins Canada Japan Literary Award". Lion's Roar. December 12, 2014. Archived from the original on March 29, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
  39. ^ "2014 Sunburst Winners | The Sunburst Award Society". www.sunburstaward.org. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  40. ^ Linda Morris (September 11, 2013). "Eleanor Catton youngest author ever shortlisted for Booker". The Age. Archived from the original on August 25, 2015. Retrieved April 2, 2016.
  41. ^ Carolyn Kellogg (April 11, 2014). "Jacket Copy: The winners of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes are ..." LA Times. Archived from the original on April 26, 2014. Retrieved April 14, 2014.
  42. ^ Flood, Alison (February 13, 2014). "Ruth Ozeki beats Thomas Pynchon to top Kitschie award". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  43. ^ "Ruth Ozeki: College & University Programs Author, Speaker | PRH Speakers Bureau". www.prhspeakers.com. Archived from the original on March 29, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
  44. ^ Schwartz, Larry. "The Willa Award". web.mnstate.edu. Archived from the original on March 29, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
  45. ^ "Writers at Newark: Ruth Ozeki, Cynthia Cruz | Rutgers University - Newark". www.newark.rutgers.edu. Archived from the original on March 29, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
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