Rachel Kushner

Rachel Kushner (born October 7, 1968) is an American writer, known for her novels Telex from Cuba (2008), The Flamethrowers (2013), and The Mars Room (2018).

Early life
Kushner was born in Eugene, Oregon, the daughter of two scientists she has called "deeply unconventional people from the beatnik generation." Her mother arranged after-school work for her straightening and alphabetizing books at a feminist bookstore when she was 5 years old, and Kushner says "it was instilled in me that I was going to be a writer of some kind from a young age." Kushner moved with her family to San Francisco in 1979.

When she was 16, she began her bachelor's degree in political economy at the University of California, Berkeley with an emphasis on United States foreign policy in Latin America. Kushner lived as an exchange student in Italy when she was 18; upon completing her Bachelor of Arts, she lived in San Francisco, working at nightclubs. At 26, she enrolled in the fiction program at Columbia University and earned a MFA in creative writing in 2000. One of her influences is the American novelist Don DeLillo.

Novels
Kushner's first novel, Telex from Cuba, was published by Scribner in July 2008. She got the idea for her novel after completing her MFA in 2000, and she made three long trips to Cuba over the six years it took her to write the book. Telex from Cuba was the cover review of the July 6, 2008 issue of The New York Times Book Review, where it was described as a "multi-layered and absorbing" novel whose "sharp observations about human nature and colonialist bias provide a deep understanding of the revolution's causes." Telex from Cuba was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award. Kushner's editor is Nan Graham.

Kushner's second novel, The Flamethrowers, was published by Scribner in April 2013. Vanity Fair hailed it for its "blazing prose," which "ignites the 70s New York art scene and Italian underground." In The New Yorker, critic James Wood praised the book as "scintillatingly alive. It ripples with stories, anecdotes, set-piece monologues, crafty egotistical tall tales, and hapless adventures: Kushner is never not telling a story... It succeeds because it is so full of vibrantly different stories and histories, all of them particular, all of them brilliantly alive." The Flamethrowers was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award, and it was named a top book of 2013 by New York Magazine, Time Magazine, The New Yorker, O, The Oprah Magazine, New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Vogue, Wall Street Journal, Salon, Slate, Daily Beast, Flavorwire, The Millions, The Jewish Daily Forward, and Austin American-Statesman.

Kushner's third novel, The Mars Room, was published by Scribner in May 2018. In September 2018 it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Journalism
After completing her MFA, Kushner lived in New York City for eight years, where she was an editor at Grand Street and BOMB. She has written widely on contemporary art, including numerous features in Artforum.

In 2016, Kushner visited Israel, as part of a project by the "Breaking the Silence" organization, to write an article for a book on the Israeli occupation, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War. The book was edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, and was published under the title "Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation", in June 2017.

Personal life
Kushner lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband Jason Smith and their son Remy.

Awards and honors

 * 2018 National Book Critics Circle Finalist
 * 2018 Man Booker Prize Shortlist
 * 2018 Prix Médicis Etranger winner
 * 2016 Harold D Vursell Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
 * 2015 Telluride Film Festival (42nd Guest Director)
 * 2014 Folio Prize shortlist for The Flamethrowers
 * 2013 Honorary PhD from Kalamazoo College
 * 2013 Guggenheim Fellow
 * 2013 National Book Award (Finalist)
 * 2008 National Book Award (Finalist)