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Leni Zumas

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Leni Zumas (2018)

Leni Zumas is an American writer from Washington, D.C., who lives in Oregon. She is the author of Red Clocks, The Listeners, and the story collection Farewell Navigator. Her short fiction, essays, and interviews have appeared in BOMB, The Cut, Granta, Guernica, Portland Monthly, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times Style (UK), Tin House, and elsewhere.[1] She teaches creative writing at Portland State University.[2]

Career

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Zumas majored in English at Brown University and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Before joining the English faculty at Portland State University, she taught writing at Columbia University, Hunter College, Eugene Lang College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the Juniper Summer Writing Institute.

Her second novel, Red Clocks (Little, Brown, 2018), was a national bestseller and winner of the Oregon Book Award in Fiction. It was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction[3] and the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Speculative Fiction.[4] Naomi Alderman's review in The New York Times calls the novel "a lyrical and beautifully observed reflection on women's lives";[5] Ploughshares describes it as "a reckoning, a warning, and nothing short of a miracle";[6] and Maggie Nelson has said, "Red Clocks is funny, mordant, baroque, political, poetic, alarming, and inspiring—not to mention a way forward for fiction now."[7] Cleveland Review of Books said that the questions the book poses are the questions that Americans are asking today, as we look to a future where Roe v. Wade could be overturned.[8]

Red Clocks was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, an Amazon Best Book of the Month, and an IndieBound Indie Next pick. It was named a Best Book of 2018 by The Atlantic,[9] HuffPost,[10] Entropy, and the New York Public Library.[11] The Washington Post named it a notable book of 2018.[12] Vulture voted it one of the 100 Most Important Books of the 21st Century So Far.[13] Red Clocks was published in the UK by The Borough Press/HarperCollins[14] and has been translated into eight languages.

Zumas's first novel, The Listeners (Tin House, 2012), was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award[15] and was selected by Powell's Books for its Indiespensable First Edition Club.[16]

Farewell Navigator: Stories was published in 2008 by Open City. "If darkness has ever been your friend, your story is in here," said Miranda July of the collection.[17] A review in L.A. Weekly observed: "It's a rare writer who can bring us closer to people we might cross the street to avoid."[18]

Publications

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Books

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  • Farewell Navigator. Open City, 2008. ISBN 9781890447496
  • The Listeners. Tin House, 2012. ISBN 9781935639299
  • Red Clocks. Little, Brown, 2018. ISBN 9781478944072

Recent short works

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References

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  1. ^ Author website
  2. ^ Portland State Creative Writing Program
  3. ^ "The Orwell Prizes 2019: Shortlists announced". The Orwell Foundation. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
  4. ^ "Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards". sites.dartmouth.edu. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
  5. ^ Alderman, Naomi (2018-01-22). "A Novel That Asks, What if Abortion Were Again Illegal?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-01-19.
  6. ^ "Must Reads for Fall". blog.pshares.org. Retrieved 2020-01-19.
  7. ^ "Red Clocks". Leni Zumas. Retrieved 2020-01-19.
  8. ^ "When Roe Falls: On the Warnings of Leni Zumas' "Red Clocks"". Cleveland Review of Books. Retrieved 2021-12-02.
  9. ^ "The 19 Best Books of 2018". The Atlantic. December 26, 2018. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  10. ^ "The Best Fiction Of 2018". HuffPost. December 6, 2018. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  11. ^ "NYPL 2018 Best Books for Adults". The New York Public Library. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  12. ^ "50 notable works of fiction in 2018". The Washington Post. November 13, 2018. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  13. ^ "A Premature Attempt at the 21st Century Literary Canon". Vulture. September 17, 2018. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  14. ^ The Borough Press
  15. ^ Literary Arts
  16. ^ Powell's Books
  17. ^ Author website
  18. ^ Marc Weingarten (July 9, 2008), "Janet Sarbanes and Leni Zumas: New short fiction tackles unsettling subject matter," L.A. Weekly
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