“In the beginning,” says Sigrid Nunez, “New York was affordable and fun.” This week on the Sewanee Review Podcast, Sigrid Nunez discusses her latest work and sifts through her remarkable education as a young writer with editor Adam Ross. From workshops with Elizabeth Hardwick to her editorial training at the New York Review of Books, Nunez offers a vibrant glimpse of the New York literary scene in the 1970s. With particular attention paid to her novel The Vulnerables—as well as its precursors The Friend and What Are You Going Through—their conversation engages with the question of what it might mean to lead a life in service of art.
Sigrid Nunez’s work has been published in more than thirty countries. She has written nine novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, and, most recently, The Vulnerables. Nunez is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Her essay “Life and Story,” originally published in the Sewanee Review, was selected for The Best American Essays 2023. She lives in New York City.
The Sewanee Review Podcast is recorded in the Ralston Listening Room at the University of the South. This episode is produced by Luke Gair and edited by ProPodcast Solutions with music by Annie Bowers. Image credit to Marion Ettlinger. Don't miss any of our conversations with some of today’s best writers. Subscribe to the Sewanee Review Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.