Rachel Cusk

Cusk was born in Saskatoon to British parents in 1967, the second of four children with an older sister and two younger brothers, and spent much of her early childhood in Los Angeles.{{cite web |last=Bethune |first=Brian |title=Rachel Cusk: 'On a winding road in the dark' |url=https://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/rachel-cusk-on-a-winding-road-in-the-dark/ |website=Maclean's |access-date=8 October 2021 |date=26 October 2015}} She moved to her parents' native Britain in 1974, settling in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. She comes from a Catholic family, and was educated at St Mary's Convent in Cambridge. She studied English at New College, Oxford.{{Cite journal|last=Heti|first=Sheila|title=The Art of Fiction No. 246|journal=The Paris Review|pages=35–63}}

Cusk's first novel, Saving Agnes, published in 1993, received the Whitbread First Novel Award.{{cite magazine|last=Thurman|first=Judith|date=31 July 2017|title=Rachel Cusk Gut-Renovates the Novel|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/07/rachel-cusk-gut-renovates-the-novel|access-date=28 April 2021|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}} Its themes of femininity and social satire remained central to her work over the next decade. She followed this in 1995 with The Temporary, then with 1997's The Country Life, a comedic novel inspired by Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. It won a 1998 Somerset Maugham Award.{{citation |url=https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/rachel-cusk |title=Rachel Cusk: Critical perspective |author=Garan Holcombe |year=2013 |publisher=British Council |accessdate=29 December 2016}}{{citation |url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-312-19848-0 |title=The Country Life |journal=Publishers Weekly |date=4 January 1999 |accessdate=29 December 2016}} In 2003 she published The Lucky Ones, a novel of linked stories about five different people, loosely connected to each other.{{Cite web |date=26 January 2004 |title=Fiction Book Review: THE LUCKY ONES by Rachel Cusk, Author |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-00-716131-7 |access-date=12 May 2021 |website=Publishers Weekly}} That same year, Cusk was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'.{{cite web|url=http://www.granta.com/Archive/81|title=Granta list of Best Young British Novelists|issue=81|date=2003}}

Her seventh novel, Arlington Park, was shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.

In responding to the formal problems of the novel representing female experience, she began to work in non-fiction: A Life's Work, a memoir of motherhood published in 2001, and 2012's Aftermath, which chronicled her marriage to and divorce from her second husband, the photographer Adrian Clarke.{{cite news|last=Cusk|first=Rachel|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/mar/21/biography.women|title=I Was Only Being Honest|work=The Guardian|date=21 March 2008|access-date=23 April 2019}}{{cite news|last=Kellaway|first=Kate|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/24/rachel-cusk-interview-aftermath-outline|title=Rachel Cusk: 'Aftermath was creative death. I was heading into total silence'|work=The Observer|date=24 August 2014|access-date=23 April 2019}} Cusk has been a professor of creative writing at Kingston University.{{Cite web|date=2018-06-19|title=Rachel Cusk|url=https://www.pw.org/content/rachel_cusk|access-date=2020-06-09|website=Poets & Writers|language=en}}

After a long period of consideration, Cusk began working in a new form that represented personal experience while avoiding the politics of subjectivity and literalism and remaining free from narrative convention. That project became a trilogy of "autobiographical novels":{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/05/told-2|title=All Told|last=Blair|first=Elaine|date=2015-01-05|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=2018-12-26}} Outline, Transit, and Kudos. The books largely consist of an unnamed narrator chronicling the conversations she has with others, as she goes about her life as a writer.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/03/outline-rachel-cusk-review-novel|title=Outline by Rachel Cusk review – vignettes from a writing workshop|last=Lasdun|first=James|date=2014-09-03|work=The Guardian|access-date=2018-12-26|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}

Judith Thurman in The New Yorker wrote: "Many experimental writers have rejected the mechanics of storytelling, but Cusk has found a way to do so without sacrificing its tension." Outline was one of The New York Times{{'}}s top 5 novels of 2015.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/02/books/review/best-books-of-2015.html|title=The 10 Best Books of 2015|work=The New York Times|date=3 December 2015|access-date=23 April 2019}} Reviewing Outline in The New York Times, Heidi Julavits wrote: "While the narrator is rarely alone, reading Outline mimics the sensation of being underwater, of being separated from other people by a substance denser than air. But there is nothing blurry or muted about Cusk's literary vision or her prose: Spend much time with this novel and you'll become convinced she is one of the smartest writers alive."{{cite news|last=Julavits|first=Heidi|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/books/review/rachel-cusks-outline.html|title=Rachel Cusk's Outline|work=The New York Times|date=11 January 2015|access-date=28 April 2022}} Outline was shortlisted for the Folio Prize,{{Cite web|title = The Folio Prize announces 2015 shortlist|url = http://www.thefolioprize.com/2015/02/the-folio-prize-announces-2015-shortlist/|website = The Folio Prize|access-date = 25 January 2016}} the Goldsmiths Prize{{Cite news|title = Goldsmiths book prize shortlist includes crowd-funded first novel|url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/01/goldsmith-literary-prize-shortlist-kingsnorth-eaves-cusk-smith|newspaper = The Guardian|date = 1 October 2014|access-date = 25 January 2016|issn = 0261-3077|language = en-GB|first = Alison|last = Flood}} and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.{{Cite news|last = Flood|first = Alison|title = Baileys women's prize for fiction shortlists debut alongside star names|url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/13/baileys-womens-prize-for-fiction-shortlists-debut-alongside-star-names|work = The Guardian|date = 13 April 2015|access-date = 25 January 2016|issn = 0261-3077}}

Reviewing Cusk's novel Transit, critic Helen Dunmore writing for The Guardian commended Cusk's "brilliant, insightful prose", adding, "Cusk is now working on a level that makes it very surprising that she has not yet won a major literary prize".{{cite news|last=Dunmore|first=Helen|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/28/transit-by-rachel-cusk-review-complex-brilliant-prose|title=Transit by Rachel Cusk – a woman's struggle to rebuild her life|work=The Guardian|date=28 August 2016}} In The New York Times review of Transit, Dwight Garner said the novel offers "transcendental reflections", and that he was waiting more eagerly for Kudos, the last novel of Rachel Cusk's trilogy, than for that of Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle series.{{cite news|last=Garner|first=Dwight|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/books/review-rachel-cusk-transit.html|title=Rachel Cusk's Transit Offers Transcendent Reflections|work=The New York Times|date=17 January 2017|access-date=21 May 2018}}

Reviews of Kudos, the last novel of Cusk's trilogy, were largely positive.{{Cite news|last=Smee|first=Sebastian|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/with-kudos-rachel-cusk-completes-a-literary-masterpiece/2018/05/22/c859db10-5df0-11e8-a4a4-c070ef53f315_story.html|title=With Kudos, Rachel Cusk completes a literary masterpiece|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=29 May 2018|access-date=30 May 2018|issn=0190-8286}}{{Cite news|last=Garner|first=Dwight|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/books/review-kudos-rachel-cusk.html|title=With Kudos, Rachel Cusk Completes an Exceptional Trilogy|work=The New York Times|date=21 May 2018|access-date=30 May 2018|issn=0362-4331}} Writing for The New Yorker, Katy Waldman called it "a book about failure that is not, in itself, a failure. In fact, it is a breathtaking success."{{Cite magazine|last=Waldman|first=Katy|url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/kudos-final-volume-rachel-cusk-faye-trilogy-ambitious-act-of-refusal|title=Kudos, the Final Volume of Rachel Cusk's "Faye" Trilogy, Completes an Ambitious Act of Refusal|magazine=The New Yorker|date=22 May 2018|access-date=30 May 2018}}

In 2015, the Almeida theatre commissioned and originally produced Cusk's adaption of Medea as Medea - Euripides, A New Version.{{Cite web|date=2015-10-03|title=Rachel Cusk interview: 'Medea is about divorce … A couple fighting is an eternal predicament. Love turning to hate'|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/03/rachel-cusk-interview-medea-divorce-almeida-theatre-london-feminist-euripides|access-date=2022-02-18|website=The Guardian|language=en}} In Cusk's adaptation, Medea does not murder her children. Reviewing Medea, the Financial Times commented: "Rachel Cusk is known as an unsparing writer in the territory of marital break-up".{{Cite news|date=4 October 2015|title=Medea, Almeida Theatre, London — review|work=Financial Times|url=https://www.ft.com/content/618172f6-68f0-11e5-a57f-21b88f7d973f|access-date=18 February 2022|url-access=subscription}}

Cusk’s novel Second Place was published in 2021. It is inspired by the memoirs of Mabel Dodge Luhan, who hosted D.H. Lawrence at her property at the Taos art colony in New Mexico, in 1924. In this work, Cusk’s experimentation with the form of the novel continued. Andrew Schenker, writing in the Los Angeles Review of Books, wrote: "If the Outline trilogy had seemed to push beyond the novel while still working within the form, then Second Place suggests that Cusk may have outgrown the genre entirely."{{Cite web|date=10 May 2021|title=Los Angeles Review of Books|url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/when-we-no-longer-believe-on-rachel-cusks-second-place/|access-date=22 October 2021|website=Los Angeles Review of Books|language=en-US}} Cleveland Review of Books reviewed the book, saying that "the narratorial absence is part of what compels one through the novels, for it acts like a filter, distilling all other people’s tales down to their most philosophically bare, their most ethically ambiguous, their most painfully isolated."{{Cite web|title=Where Life Ends and Art Begins: On Rachel Cusk's "Second Place"|url=https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/home/rachel-cusk-second-place-review|access-date=2 December 2021|website=Cleveland Review of Books|language=en-US}} The novel was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize,{{cite web |last=Flood |first=Alison |title=Booker prize reveals globe-spanning longlist of 'engrossing stories' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/27/booker-prize-reveals-globe-spanning-longlist-of-engrossing-stories |website=The Guardian |access-date=4 October 2021 |date=26 July 2021}} and shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2021 Governor General's Awards.[https://www.cbc.ca/books/ivan-coyote-david-a-robertson-julie-flett-among-finalists-for-25k-governor-general-s-literary-awards-1.6209298 "Ivan Coyote, David A. Robertson & Julie Flett among finalists for $25K Governor General's Literary Awards"]. CBC Books, October 14, 2021. Blandine Longre's French translation was awarded the 2022 Prix Femina étranger.{{cite news|last=Dupuy|first=Éric|date=7 November 2022|title=Claudie Hunzinger, Rachel Cusk et Annette Wieviorka primées au Femina 2022|url=https://www.livreshebdo.fr/article/claudie-hunzinger-rachel-cusk-et-annette-wieviorka-primees-au-femina-2022|work=Livres Hebdo|language=fr|access-date=8 November 2022}}

After a brief first marriage to a banker, Cusk was married to photographer Adrian Clarke, with whom she has two daughters.{{cite news|last=Cusk|first=Rachel|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/17/rachel-cusk-divorce-the-aftermath|title=Rachel Cusk: my broken marriage|work=The Guardian|date=17 February 2012|access-date=23 April 2019}} The couple separated in 2011. Their divorce, which was acrimonious, became a major topic in Cusk's writings. She subsequently revealed, "I had hated my husband’s unwaged domesticity just as much as I had hated my mother’s; and he, like her, had claimed to be content with his lot." Her husband's willingness to give up the traditional male role of wage-earner was not, for Cusk, "a manifestation of equality but of dependence" and she felt "beneath the reconfigured surface of things, the tension of the old orthodoxies."{{cite news |last=Baumann |first=Paul |date=9 January 2019|title=Portrait of a Marriage: Rachel Cusk's Memoirs |url=https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/portrait-marriage |work=Commonweal |access-date=3 April 2025}}

Cusk is currently married to retail consultant and artist Siemon Scamell-Katz.{{Cite web|last=Carponen|first=Claire|title=The $2.7 Million English Coastal Home Of Author Rachel Cusk Hits The Market|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/clairecarponen/2020/06/29/the-27-million-english-coastal-home-of-author-rachel-cusk-hits-the-market/|access-date=2021-03-15|website=Forbes|language=en}}{{Cite web|date=2019-08-28|title=Rachel Cusk's house is an austere, experimental, hyper-modern masterpiece. (Shocking, right?)|url=https://lithub.com/rachel-cusks-house-is-an-austere-experimental-hyper-modern-masterpiece-shocking-right/|access-date=2021-03-15|website=Literary Hub|language=en-US}} In 2021, the couple moved from residences in London and Norfolk to Paris,{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/10/rachel-cusk-wont-stay-still/671824/|website=Atlantic |title=Rachel Cusk won't stay still|date=24 October 2022 }} a protest in part against the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.{{cite web |last=Hitchens |first=Antonia |title=Rachel Cusk's 'Second Place' Might Be the First Pandemic Novel |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/rachel-cusk-interview-second-place-pandemic-novel-11620131538|url-access=subscription |website=The Wall Street Journal |access-date=8 October 2021 |date=4 May 2021}}

• 1993 Whitbread First Novel Award – Saving Agnes{{cite web|url=http://www.costa.co.uk/media/414535/past-winners-complete-list.pdf|title=Whitbread Winners 1971-2005|work=Costa Book Awards|access-date=29 January 2017}}
• 1997 Somerset Maugham Award – The Country Life{{cite web |url=http://www.societyofauthors.org/Prizes/Fiction/Somerset-Maugham/Past-winners |title=Previous winners of the Somerset Maugham Awards |publisher=The Society of Authors |access-date=2016-12-29}}
• 2003 Whitbread Novel Award (shortlist) – The Lucky Ones{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3606699/Whitbread-2003-shortlists.html|title=Whitbread 2003 shortlists|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=10 November 2003|access-date=5 March 2017}}
• 2005 Man Booker Prize (longlist) – In the Fold{{cite web |url=http://themanbookerprize.com/books/fold-by |title=In the Fold |date=September 2005 |publisher=The Man Booker Prizes |access-date=2016-12-30}}
• 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist) – Arlington Park{{cite web |url=https://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/reading-room/book/arlington-park |title=2007 Shortlist |work=Women's Prize for Fiction |access-date=2021-05-18}}
• 2012 Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL){{cite web |title=Rachel Cusk |url=https://rsliterature.org/fellows/rachel-cusk/ |website=RSL |date=September 2023 |access-date=16 October 2024}}
• 2014 Goldmiths Prize (shortlist) – Outline{{cn|date=July 2024}}
• 2015 Folio Prize (shortlist) – Outline{{cn|date=July 2024}}
• 2015 Bailey's Prize (shortlist) – Outline{{cn|date=July 2024}}
• 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize (shortlist) – Outline{{cite web|url=http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/the-scotiabank-giller-prize-presents-its-2015-shortlist/|title=The Scotiabank Giller Prize Presents Its 2015 Shortlist|work=Scotiabank Giller Prize|location=Canada|date=5 October 2015|access-date=5 March 2017}}
• 2015 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction (shortlist) – Outline{{cn|date=July 2024}}
• 2016 Goldsmiths Prize (shortlist) – Transit{{cn|date=July 2024}}
• 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize (shortlist) – Transit{{cite web|url=http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/the-scotiabank-giller-prize-presents-its-2017-shortlist/|title=The Scotiabank Giller Prize Presents Its 2017 Shortlist|work=Scotiabank Giller Prize|location=Canada|date=2 October 2017|access-date=2 October 2017}}
• 2018 Goldsmiths Prize (shortlist) – Kudos{{Cite news|last=Gatti|first=Tom|url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/09/rachel-cusk-makes-goldsmiths-prize-shortlist-third-time|title=Rachel Cusk makes Goldsmiths Prize shortlist for the third time|work=New Statesman|date=26 September 2018|access-date=23 April 2019}}
• 2021 Booker Prize (longlist) – Second Place{{cn|date=July 2024}}
• 2021 Governor General's Award for English-language fiction (shortlist) – Second Place
• 2022 Prix Femina étranger – Second Place
• 2024 Premio Malaparte{{cite news |last=Tambrurrino |first=Michaela |date=6 October 2024 |url=https://www.lastampa.it/cultura/2024/10/06/news/rachel_cusk_scrittrice_premio_malaparte-14692867/ |title=Rachel Cusk, premio Malaparte: "Voglio bruciare la mia educazione" |url-access=subscription |newspaper=La Stampa |language=it |access-date=11 October 2024 }}
• 2024 Goldsmiths Prize – Parade

Novels

• Saving Agnes (1993)
• The Temporary (1995)
• The Country Life (1997)
• The Lucky Ones (2003)
• In the Fold (2005)
• Arlington Park (2006)
• The Bradshaw Variations (2009)
• The Outline Trilogy
• # Outline (2014)
• # Transit (2016)
• # Kudos (2018)
• Second Place (2021)
• Parade (2024)

Non-fiction

• A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother (2001)
• The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy (2009){{cite news|author=Laing, Olivia|author-link=Olivia Laing|title=Review of The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy by Rachel Cusk|newspaper=The Guardian|date=24 January 2009|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/25/rachel-cusk-last-supper-italy}}{{cite news|title=Review of The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy by Rachel Cusk|author=Begley, Adam|author-link=Adam Begley|newspaper=The New York Times|date=May 28, 2009|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/books/review/Begley-t.html}}
• Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation (2012)
• Coventry: Essays (2019)
• Quarry (2022){{cite web |title=C38 Quarry |url=http://sylpheditions.com/cahier/c38-quarry |website=Sylph Editions |date=April 2022 |access-date=March 3, 2024}}
• (with Chris Kontos) Marble in Metamorphosis (2022)

Theatre

• Medea, Euripides – A new Version, 2015, Commissioned by and originally produced at the Almeida theatre in London, UK.

Short stories

• "After Caravaggio's Sacrifice of Isaac", Granta, 2003{{cite web |title="After Caravaggio's Sacrifice of Isaac," by Rachel Cusk

|url=https://granta.com/after-caravaggios-sacrifice-of-isaac/ |website=Granta |date=14 April 2003 |access-date=February 9, 2024}}

• "The Stuntman", The New Yorker, 2023{{cite magazine |title="The Stuntman," by Rachel Cusk |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/24/the-stuntman-fiction-rachel-cusk |magazine=The New Yorker |date=17 April 2023 |access-date=June 27, 2023 |last1=Cusk |first1=Rachel }}

{{reflist}}

• "Suburban Worlds: Rachel Cusk and Jon McGregor." In B. Schoene. The Cosmopolitan Novel. Edinburgh University Press, 2009.

{{Wikiquote|Rachel Cusk}}

• Elaine Blair in [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/05/told-2 The New Yorker] on Rachel Cusk and Outline
• https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/books/outline-rachel-cusks-new-novel.html
• http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/outline-rachel-cusk/
• https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/the-uncoupling/508742/
• [https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/aftermath-on-marriage-and-separation-by-rachel-cusk-xn0xgt0lsp9 The Times]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cusk, Rachel}}

Category:1967 births

Category:Living people

Category:Alumni of New College, Oxford

Category:English women novelists

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature

Category:20th-century English novelists

Category:21st-century English novelists

Category:Writers from Bury St Edmunds

Category:Writers from Los Angeles

Category:Writers from Saskatoon

Category:Academics of Kingston University

Category:20th-century English women writers

Category:21st-century English women writers

Category:Prix Femina Étranger winners