Nicole Krauss

Nicole Krauss has received international acclaim for her profound exploration of complex characters and the poignant depiction of their most fragile yet most transformative moments. The total control Krauss exerts over her expressive means is on full display in her 2022 book, To Be a Man, her first short story collection. Her language, elegant and seductive, shines with slick precision, a testament to her apprenticeship under poet Joseph Brodsky and her background in Art History. She was born in 1974 in Brooklyn to a British mother and an American father, both children of Jewish immigrants, and her Jewish identity and history inform many of her work’s themes and preoccupations. She has two children with author Jonathan Safran Foer, whom she divorced in 2014. She first appeared on the literary scene in 2002 with Man Walks into a Room, followed by The History of Love, Great House and Forest Dark, which all became international bestsellers, earning her a dedicated following. Her work has been translated into 38 languages. Recently, Krauss gave an impassioned speech on the current place of literature in the world, asserting that “the demolition of the capacity to read and engage with books” is already well underway and that “writing and reading are not effortless, but their end will be the end of freedom”.