Rachel Kushner

Mars Room todistaa, että Rachel Kushner on aikamme parhaita kirjailijoita.Amerikkalaisen kirjallisuuden supertähden ravisuttava kuvaus rikoksesta ja rangaistuksesta, modernista perikadosta ja inhimillisyyden monista muodoista lyö lukijalta jalat alta.Kalifornia vuonna 2003. Romy Hallia odottaa kaksi elinkautista jättimäisessä naisvankilassa keskellä aavikkoa. Muurien ulkopuolelle jäävät työt strippiklubilla ja poika Jackson, jonka Romy ei halua joutuvan saman järjestelmän rattaisiin. Muurien sisällä vastassa on uusi todellisuus: tuhansien naisten joukko, joka tekee mitä on tarpeen pärjätäkseen päivästä toiseen, arkiset väkivallan teot, laitoselämän pienet ja suuret järjettömyydet. Romy ei sääli itseään eikä muita, mutta selvää on, ettei oikeus voita aina, jos koskaan.Kushner kuvaa vaikeista oloista ponnistavan naisen osaa ja kotimaansa vääjäämätöntä luisua jalustalta armotta ja varmoin ottein, terävän älyllisesti, mutta myötäeläen.”Kushnerin proosa ritisee ja sähisee kuin vankilaa ympäröivä sähköaita, hänen havaintonsa ovat teräviä kuin piikkilangan piikit, huumori mustaa kuin aavikon yötaivas. Tämän romaanin lukeminen ei kenties ole silkkaa nautintoa, mutta se jää lukijan iholle kuin tatuointi.”- Lisa Allardice, The GuardianRachel Kushner on kirjoittanut The New York Timesin bestsellerlistoille nousseet romaanit The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers ja Telex from Cuba sekä novellikokoelman The Strange Case of Rachel K ja kiitetyn esseeteoksen The Hard Crowd. Kushner on saanut Prix Médicis -palkinnon, ja hänen kirjansa ovat olleet ehdolla Booker- ja Folio-palkinnon sekä The National Book Critics Circle Awardin ja National Book Award in Fiction -palkinnon saajaksi. Hänen kirjojaan on käännetty 27 kielelle. Kushnerin tuorein romaani ja ensimmäinen suomennettu teos Luomisen järvi valittiin niin ikään Booker-palkintoehdokkaaksi, ja Helsingin sanomissa se nimettiin yhdeksi vuoden 2024 tärkeimmistä käännöskirjoista.

"Loomise järv" on romaan vabakutselisest salaagendist, kolmekümne nelja aastasest halastamatust taktikust, julgete arvamuste ja laitmatu ilu poolest tuntud ameeriklannast, kes saadetakse Prantsusmaale dissidentide põllumajanduskommuuni jälgima. Sadie Smithi nime all imbub ta kommuuni sisse ja selle nime all tutvustab ta end ka Lucienile, noorele heast perekonnast pärit pariislasele, kellest saab Sadie kallim ja keda ta kasutab ära oma hämarate tööandjate aina nõudlikumate eesmärkide täitmiseks. Hõredalt asustatud, vanade talumajade ja eelajalooliste koobastega Prantsuse maanurgas elutseb ka Bruno Lacombe, noorte aktivistide salapärane leebe mentor, kes usub, et tee emantsipatsioonini ei peitu mitte vastuhakus, vaid kaugesse minevikku tagasi pöördumises. Samal ajal kui külmalt kaalutlev Sadie on veendunud, et tema vaatlusalused on tal täielikult ümber sõrme keeratud, vajub ta ise üha sügavamale Bruno hiilgavate alternatiivsete ajalootõlgenduste, sõnaosava kaeblemise ja liigutava isikliku loo võrku. Lühikestes lennukates lõikudes kirjutatud "Loomise järv" on pingeline ja uljas romaan, mis on täis kaasahaaravaid mõtterännakuid ja musta huumorit. Rachel Kushner on New York Timesi menuromaanide "The Mars Room", "The Flamethrowers" ja "Telex from Cuba" ning jutukogu "The Strange Case of Rachel K." autor. Tema sulest on ilmunud ka tunnustatud esseekogumik "The Hard Crowd". Ta on Prix Medicisi laureaat ning mitme maineka preemia finalist, sealhulgas National Book Critics Circle Award, Folio Prize, Booker Prize ja National Book Award. "Loomise järv" nomineeriti nii National Book Awardile kui ka Booker Prize'ile. Tema teoseid on tõlgitud 29 keelde.

This summer, meet Sadie Smith: seductive, cunning and going undercover – the Booker-shortlisted, wickedly entertaining New York Times bestseller‘Hugely enjoyable’ SUNDAY TIMES‘Wonderfully seductive’ ALAN HOLLINGHURST‘Really fantastic – get it!’ SARAH JESSICA PARKER‘Entrancing’ MICK HERRONSadie Smith – a 34-year-old American undercover agent of ruthless tactics and bold opinions – is sent by her mysterious but powerful employers to a remote corner of France.Her mission: to infiltrate a commune of radical activists influenced by the beliefs of an enigmatic elder, Bruno Lacombe. But just as she is certain she’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Sadie becomes caught in the crossfire between the past and the future…‘Kill Bill written by John le Carré’ OBSERVER‘Smart, sinuous…brimming with heat’ NEW YORK TIMES‘Reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture’ HERNAN DIAZ‘Laced with a killer dose of deadpan wit’ WASHINGTON POST* A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW YORK TIMES, VOGUE, INDEPENDENT, HARPER’S BAZAAR AND MORE *

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE* *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD* *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 PEN FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION* *AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE ATLANTIC, VULTURE, VOGUE, THE WASHINGTON POST, KIRKUS REVIEWS, NPR, THE ECONOMIST, THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, VOX, and more* From Rachel Kushner, two-time finalist for both the Booker Prize and National Book Award, a "vital" (The Washington Post) and "wickedly entertaining" (The Guardian) novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France--a propulsive page-turner filled with dark humor. Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics and clean beauty who is sent to do dirty work in France. "Sadie Smith" is how the narrator introduces herself to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to her lover, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian she has met by "cold bump"--making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone she targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her "contacts"--shadowy figures in business and government--instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more. In this region of old farms and prehistoric caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who believes that the path to emancipation is not revolt but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she's the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner's rendition of "noir" is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner's finest achievement yet--a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure.

"From Booker Prize finalist and two-time National Book Award finalist Rachel Kushner, a "vital" (The Washington Post) and "wickedly entertaining" (The Guardian) novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France--a propulsive page-turner filled with dark humor. A thirty-four-year-old American woman--a secret agent--is sent to do dirty work in France. "Sadie Smith" is how the narrator introduces herself to her lover, to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to the reader. Sadie has met her love, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian, by "cold bump"--making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone Sadie targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her "contacts"--shadowy figures in business and government--instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more. In this region of centuries-old farms and ancient caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who communicates only by email. Bruno believes that the path to emancipation from what ails modern life is not revolt, but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she's the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner's rendition of "noir" is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner's finest achievement yet as a novelist, a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure."

Uusi kirjailija Keltaisen kirjaston juhlavuonna!Luomisen järvi on trilleri, parodia ja syvällinen tutkielma ihmiskunnan aamuhämäristä. Mutta ennen kaikkea se on kirjallinen tapaus.Amerikkalainen peiteagentti Sadie Smith saa tehtäväkseen soluttautua ranskalaisten ympäristöaktivistien kommuuniin ja tuhota heidät. Paatuneelle Sadielle tehtävä on helppo, kunnes hän huomaa viehättyvänsä ryhmän karismaattisen johtajan, Bruno Lacomben, idealismista vähän liikaakin. Neandertalinihmisen ylivertaisuuden nimeen vannova Bruno on vakuuttunut, että ihmiskunta voi pelastua vain palaamalla primitivismiin. Mitä jos sivilisaatio onkin täysin turhaa? Rachelin Kushnerin häikäisevä romaani metsästää merkityksiä menneen ja tulevan ristitulesta, sieltä missä nykyisyys on pelkkä jalanjälki hiekassa.Rachel Kushner on kirjoittanut The New York Timesin bestseller-listoille nousseet romaanit The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers ja Telex from Cuba sekä novellikokoelman The Strange Case of Rachel K ja kiitetyn esseeteoksen The Hard Crowd. Kushner on saanut Prix Médicis -palkinnon, ja hänen kirjansa ovat olleet ehdolla Booker- ja Folio-palkinnon sekä The National Book Critics Circle Awardin ja National Book Award in Fiction -palkinnon saajaksi. Hänen kirjojaan on käännetty 27 kielelle.

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024****INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**'Imagine Slow Horses’ Jackson Lamb in the body of Jodie Comer’s character in Killing Eve' SUNDAY TIMES'Compulsively readable... Kill Bill written by John le Carré' OBSERVERSeductive and cunning American spy-for-hire Sadie Smith has been sent by her mysterious but powerful employers to a remote corner of France.Her mission: to infiltrate a commune of radical eco-activists influenced by the beliefs of an enigmatic elder, Bruno Lacombe, who has rejected civilisation, lives in a Neanderthal cave, and believes the path to enlightenment is a return to primitivism.Sadie casts her cynical eye over this region of ancient farms and sleepy villages, and finds Bruno’s idealism laughable, but just as she is certain she’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story.Beneath this a taut, dazzling story of espionage and intrigue lies one of a woman caught in the crossfire between the past and the future, and a profound treatise on human history.'The most exciting writer of her generation' BRET EASTON ELLIS'Reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture' HERNAN DIAZ*A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES, NEW YORK TIMES, INDEPENDENT, DAILY TELEGRAPH, THE ATLANTIC, GUARDIAN, VULTURE, THE ECONOMIST*

From Rachel Kushner, Booker Prize finalist and two-time National Book Award finalist, comes a new novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France'Reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture' HERNAN DIAZ'Compulsively readable... Kill Bill written by John le Carre' OBSERVERSadie Smith - a thirty-four-year-old American undercover agent of ruthless tactics, bold opinions and clean beauty - is sent by her mysterious but powerful employers to a remote corner of France. Her mission: to infiltrate a commune of radical eco-activists influenced by the beliefs of a mysterious elder, Bruno Lacombe, who has rejected civilisation tout court.Sadie casts her cynical eye over this region of ancient farms and sleepy villages, and at first finds Bruno's idealism laughable - he lives in a Neanderthal cave and believes the path to enlightenment is a return to primitivism. But just as Sadie is certain she's the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story.Beneath this parodic spy novel about a woman caught in the crossfire between the past and the future lies a profound treatise on human history. Creation Lake is Rachel Kushner's finest achievement yet - a work of high art, high comedy and irresistible pleasure.

From Rachel Kushner, a Booker Prize finalist, two-time National Book Award finalist, and "one of the most gifted authors of her generation" (The New York Times Book Review), comes a new novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France--a propulsive page-turner of glittering insights and dark humor.Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics, bold opinions, and clean beauty, who is sent to do dirty work in France. "Sadie Smith" is how the narrator introduces herself to her lover, to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to the reader. Sadie has met her love, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian, by "cold bump"--making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone Sadie targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her "contacts"--shadowy figures in business and government--instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more. In this region of centuries-old farms and ancient caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who communicates only by email. Bruno believes that the path to emancipation from what ails modern life is not revolt, but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she's the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner's rendition of "noir" is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner's finest achievement yet as a novelist, a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure.

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE* *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD* *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 PEN FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION* *AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE ATLANTIC, VULTURE, VOGUE, THE WASHINGTON POST, KIRKUS REVIEWS, NPR, THE ECONOMIST, THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, VOX, and more* From Rachel Kushner, two-time finalist for both the Booker Prize and National Book Award, a "vital" (The Washington Post) and "wickedly entertaining" (The Guardian) novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France--a propulsive page-turner filled with dark humor. Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics and clean beauty who is sent to do dirty work in France. "Sadie Smith" is how the narrator introduces herself to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to her lover, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian she has met by "cold bump"--making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone she targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her "contacts"--shadowy figures in business and government--instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more. In this region of old farms and prehistoric caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who believes that the path to emancipation is not revolt but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she's the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner's rendition of "noir" is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner's finest achievement yet--a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure.

Named by the New Yorker as one of the best books of 2022, this posthumously published work serves as the fourth and final volume in Anne Truitt’s remarkable series of journals “Anne Truitt’s Yield has a tone that is rich and spare, considered and sensuous, inward-looking and utterly vibrant and vivid, fully alive in the world, inspiring for the reader.”—Colm Tóibín, author of The Master “Impressive. . . . Truitt lyrically looks back on 80 years of life. . . . [T]hese daily entries . . . offer a version of Truitt free of artifice as she meditates on the sacred and mundane. . . . This sparks with intelligence.”—Publishers Weekly “Truitt wrote as she sculpted, returning to the past again and again to find fresh truths. . . . A model of discipline and open-ended inquiry and a welcome counterweight to the kind of anxieties that so often accompany a creative practice.”—Megan O’Grady, New Yorker “In its stripped-down intimacy, Yield shows Truitt at her most eloquent in demonstrating, as her sculptures do, that all revelation in art is self-revelation.”—Donna Rifkind, Wall Street Journal In the spring of 1974, the artist Anne Truitt (1921–2004) committed herself to keeping a journal for a year. She would continue the practice, sometimes intermittently, over the next six years, writing in spiral-bound notebooks and setting no guidelines other than to “let the artist speak.” These writings were published as Daybook: The Journal of an Artist (1982). Two other journal volumes followed: Turn (1986) and Prospect (1996). This book, the final volume, comprises journals the artist kept from the winter of 2001 to the spring of 2002, two years before her death. In Yield, Truitt’s unflinching honesty is on display as she contemplates her place in the world and comes to terms with the intellectual, practical, emotional, and spiritual issues that an artist faces when reconciling her art with her life, even as that life approaches its end. Truitt illuminates a life and career in which the demands, responsibilities, and rewards of family, friends, motherhood, and grandmotherhood are ultimately accepted, together with those of a working artist.

The Outlands, a series of photographs taken by Eggleston between 1969 and 1974, establishes the groundbreaking visual themes and lexicon that the artist would continue to develop for decades to come. The work offers a journey through the mythic and evolving American South, seen through the artist’s lens: vibrant colors and a profound sense of nostalgia echo throughout Eggleston’s breathtaking oeuvre. His motifs of signage, cars, and roadside scenes create an iconography of American vistas that inspired a generation of photographers. With its in-depth selection of unforgettable images - a wood-paneled station wagon, doors flung open, parked in an expansive rural setting; the artist’s grandmother in the moody interior of their family’s Sumner, Mississippi home - The Outlands is emblematic of Eggleston’s dynamic, experimental practice. The breadth of work reenergizes his iconic landscapes and forms a new perspective of the American South in transition. Accompanying the ninety brilliant Kodachrome images and details, a literary, fictional text by the critically acclaimed author Rachel Kushner imagines a story of hitchhikers trekking through the Deep South. New scholarship by Robert Slifkin reframes the art-historical significance of Eggleston’s oeuvre, proposing affinities with work by Marcel Duchamp, Dan Graham, Jasper Johns, and Robert Smithson. A foreword by William Eggleston III offers important insights into the process of selecting and sequencing this series of images.

Named by the New Yorker as one of the best books of 2022, this posthumously published work serves as the fourth and final volume in Anne Truitt’s remarkable series of journals “Impressive. . . . Truitt lyrically looks back on 80 years of life. . . . [T]hese daily entries . . . offer a version of Truitt free of artifice as she meditates on the sacred and mundane. . . . This sparks with intelligence.”—Publishers Weekly “Truitt wrote as she sculpted, returning to the past again and again to find fresh truths. . . . A model of discipline and open-ended inquiry and a welcome counterweight to the kind of anxieties that so often accompany a creative practice.”—Megan O’Grady, New Yorker “In its stripped-down intimacy, Yield shows Truitt at her most eloquent in demonstrating, as her sculptures do, that all revelation in art is self-revelation.”—Donna Rifkind, Wall Street Journal In the spring of 1974, the artist Anne Truitt (1921–2004) committed herself to keeping a journal for a year. She would continue the practice, sometimes intermittently, over the next six years, writing in spiral-bound notebooks and setting no guidelines other than to “let the artist speak.” These writings were published as Daybook: The Journal of an Artist (1982). Two other journal volumes followed: Turn (1986) and Prospect (1996). This book, the final volume, comprises journals the artist kept from the winter of 2001 to the spring of 2002, two years before her death. In Yield, Truitt’s unflinching honesty is on display as she contemplates her place in the world and comes to terms with the intellectual, practical, emotional, and spiritual issues that an artist faces when reconciling her art with her life, even as that life approaches its end. Truitt illuminates a life and career in which the demands, responsibilities, and rewards of family, friends, motherhood, and grandmotherhood are ultimately accepted, together with those of a working artist.

From the Booker-shortlisted author of The Mars Room, a career-spanning collection of spectacular essays about politics and culture.In The Hard Crowd, Rachel Kushner gathers a selection of her writing from over the course of the last twenty years that addresses the most pressing political, artistic, and cultural issues of our times - and illuminates the themes and real-life terrain that underpin her fiction.In razor-sharp essays spanning literary journalism, memoir, cultural criticism, and writing about art and literature, Kushner takes us from Jeff Koons and Marguerite Duras to a Palestinian refugee camp, from her love of classic cars to her young life in the music scene of San Francisco. The closing, eponymous essay is her manifesto on nostalgia, doom, and writing.'I'm glad to taste something this sharp, this smart' Olivia Laing'Wild, wide-ranging and unsparingly intelligent throughout' Vogue'An exciting book... Kushner writes from the inside out and gives us the true story, the real deal' Kevin Barry, New Statesman, Books of the Year

Now includes a new essay, "Naked Childhood," about Kushner's family, their converted school bus, and the Summers of Love in Oregon and San Francisco "The Hard Crowd is wild, wide-ranging, and unsparingly intelligent throughout." --Taylor Antrim, Vogue From a writer celebrated for her "chops, ambition, and killer instinct" (John Powers, Fresh Air), a career-spanning collection of spectacular essays about politics and culture.Rachel Kushner has established herself as "the most vital and interesting American novelist working today" (The Millions) and as a master of the essay form. In The Hard Crowd, she gathers a selection of her writing from over the course of the last twenty years that addresses the most pressing political, artistic, and cultural issues of our times--and illuminates the themes and real-life experiences that inform her fiction. In twenty razor-sharp essays, The Hard Crowd spans literary journalism, memoir, cultural criticism, and writing about art and literature, including pieces on Jeff Koons, Denis Johnson, and Marguerite Duras. Kushner takes us on a journey through a Palestinian refugee camp, an illegal motorcycle race down the Baja Peninsula, 1970s wildcat strikes in Fiat factories, her love of classic cars, and her young life in the music scene of her hometown, San Francisco. The closing, eponymous essay is her manifesto on nostalgia, doom, and writing. These pieces, new and old, are electric, vivid, and wry, and they provide an opportunity to witness the evolution and range of one of our most dazzling and fearless writers. "Kushner writes with startling detail, imagination, and gallows humor," said Leah Greenblatt in Entertainment Weekly, and, from Paula McLain in the Wall Street Journal: "The authority and precision of Kushner's writing is impressive, but it's the gorgeous ferocity that will stick with me."

An acidic portrait of the grifters and pretenders of the art world, from the celebrated author of The Mars Room In Rachel Kushner’s latest work of fiction, The Mayor of Leipzig, an unnamed artist recounts her travels from New York City to Cologne—where she contemplates German guilt and art-world grifters, and Leipzig—where she encounters live “adult entertainment” in a business hotel. The narrator gossips about everyone, including the author. “Taking a time out from what happened to me in Cologne and in Leipzig,” Kushner writes, “I want to let you in on a secret: I personally know the author of this story you’re reading. Because she fancies herself an art world type, a hanger-on. Who would do that voluntarily? I mean, it’s not like someone held a gun to my head and said, Be an artist. I chose it, but I still can’t imagine having anything to do with the art world if you don’t have to. Also, people who don’t make stuff, who instead try to catalogue, periodize, and understand art, they never understand the first thing. Art is about taste, a sense of humor, and most writers lack both.” Rachel Kushner (born 1968) is the author of The Flamethrowers (2013) and The Mars Room (2018). Her debut novel, Telex from Cuba, was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book. A collection of her early work, The Strange Case of Rachel K, was published by New Directions in 2015. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s and the Paris Review.

From celebrated writer Rachel Kushner comes a career-spanning collection of spectacular essays encompassing politics, culture, and art.Since her debut more than a decade ago, Rachel Kushner has firmly established herself as not only one of our finest fiction writers, but one of our most incisive essayists--each of her pieces is singular, brilliant, and itself a literary event. Now, in The Hard Crowd, Kushner gathers a selection of her writing over the course of the last twenty years that not only illuminates the themes that underpin her fiction, but addresses the most pressing political, artistic, and cultural issues of our times.In nineteen razor-sharp essays, The Hard Crowd spans literary journalism, memoir, cultural criticism, and writing about art and literature, including pieces on politics, social justice, and her personal relationships, as well as on Jeff Koons, Denis Johnson, and Marguerite Duras. Kushner takes us on a journey through a Palestinian refugee camp in East Jerusalem, the world of truckers, and the music scene of her hometown of San Francisco. Her stories are electric, incisive, and wry, and provide us the opportunity to witness the evolution and range of one of our most dazzling and fearless writers.