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Quote by Rachel Kushner

“Danzon is my favorite Cuban music, played by a traditional string orchestra with flute and piano. It's very formally structured but romantic music, which derives from the French-Haitian contradance.”

Quote by Rachel Kushner

Author

Rachel Kushner (b. 1968) is an acclaimed American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. Her notable works include Telex from Cuba, The Flamethrowers, and The Mars Room. Known for her historical depth, complex narratives, and sharp cultural critique, Kushner explores American history, politics, and identity through richly layered prose. Her novel The Mars Room was a finalist for the 2018 Booker Prize and Pulitzer Prize. more

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“Eventually, I decided that if I was going to really write a novel, I couldn't do it in New York City while holding down a job. You need a constant money source to live in New York City unless you're independently wealthy, which I'm not.”

Ifs Needs Writing Jobs Cities Novel New York Source Decided Constant Wealthy New York City

Author:Rachel Kushner

“I am occasionally enraptured by Western landscape. But I don't identify that state of mind as having to do with my own origins, having grown up in the West, although I certainly crisscrossed Nevada countless times growing up, and then as a young adult, in cars and on motorcycles.”

Mind States Young My Own Growing Up Growing Car Adults West Western Young Adult Landscape State Of Mind Motorcycle Nevada

Author:Rachel Kushner

“I didn't do a masters in creative writing until I was 26, which is quite old, and then I found myself in New York and I needed money, so I started working full time as an editor.”

Writing Found Creative New York Masters Needed Editors Creative Writing

Author:Rachel Kushner

“I shy away from plot structure that depends on the characters behaving in ways that are going to eventually be explained by their childhood, or by some recent trauma or event. People are incredibly complicated. Who knows why they are the way they are?”

People Knows Way Character Childhood Events Depends Structure Complicated Trauma Shy Plot

Author:Rachel Kushner

“I was very precocious when I was young. I went to college at 16, and I graduated at 20. I wanted to be a writer, but I was more interested in experience than in applying myself intellectually.”

Wanted Young College Precocious

Author:Rachel Kushner

“It's really a misconception to identify the writer with the main character, given that the author creates all the characters in the book. In certain ways, I'm every character.”

Way Book Character Certain Given Misconception Main Characters

Author:Rachel Kushner

“L.A. is a great place to write because you have a lot of space. I have a big office at home, I can leave the doors open. Flowers bloom all year. But it's unglamorous in all the right ways.”

Way Writing Years I Can Home Bigs Space Doors Flower Office Right Way Blooming Flower

Author:Rachel Kushner

“One of the strategies for doing first-person is to make the narrator very knowing, so that the reader is with somebody who has a take on everything they observe.”

Firsts Persons Knowing Reader Strategy First Person Narrators

Author:Rachel Kushner

“When I see things in the world that leap out at me, I want to make use of them in fiction. Maybe every writer does that. It just depends on what you claim or appropriate as yours.”

World Want Doe Use Fiction Depends Claims Appropriate Leap

Author:Rachel Kushner

“Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvellous than the land.”

People Literature Land Marvellous

Book:Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)