Books by Rachel Kushner
Rachel Kushner’s debut novel, Telex from Cuba, was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and a New York Times bestseller. Her follow-up novel, The Flamethrowers, was also a finalist for the National Book Award and received rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s and the Paris Review. She lives in Los Angeles.
“This book is interesting because it gets into ideas of primeval thinking. The conclusions of the book are very unexpected. There’s a whole section on cave frequencies, ancient voices and deep knowledge, and how our perception of reality is shaped by our ancestry and how we think about the past. It is done through an interesting device. And it takes turns that I would never have anticipated.” Read more...
The Best Novels of 2024: The Booker Prize Shortlist
Nitin Sawhney, Musicians, Music Critics & Scholar
The Mars Room
by Rachel Kushner
The Mars Room, set in a women’s prison, was one of the best novels of 2018, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and convincing the chair of the judges, Kwame Anthony Appiah, of the urgent need for prison reform. In the audiobook, Rachel Kushner narrates The Mars Room to great effect.
Narrator: Rachel Kushner
Length: 9 hours and 41 minutes
The Flamethrowers
by Rachel Kushner
Some of the book takes place in revolutionary Italy, but much of it is set in the art world of the 1970s.
Interviews with Rachel Kushner
Rachel Kushner on Books That Influenced Her
Rachel Kushner, author of The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room, which has been shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize, discusses the five books that have most influenced her writing, from Dostoyevsky to Marguerite Duras. She muses on the question of what fiction can offer: “A novel itself, if it is good, and effective at whatever its particular aesthetic and philosophical aim is, can answer the question best, so that a novelist doesn’t have to.”
Interviews where books by Rachel Kushner were recommended
Hermione Hoby on New York Novels
The writer and journalist Hermione Hoby’s highly acclaimed first novel is set during a New York heatwave. Here she picks five books inspired by this capacious, overstated, indomitable city and discusses how it shaped her as a writer.
The Best Fiction of 2018, recommended by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Looking for the best novels of the year? Kwame Anthony Appiah, professor of philosophy at New York University and chair of the 2018 Man Booker Prize for fiction, gives an in-depth breakdown of the six books that made this year’s shortlist, and reflects on why the novel as a form is stronger than ever.
The Best Novels of 2024: The Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Nitin Sawhney
Every year, the £50,000 Booker Prize is awarded to a work of fiction newly published in English. We spoke to the composer Nitin Sawhney, one of this year’s judges, about their search for a shortlist, and why these six books—including the winning title, Samantha Harvey’s space station novel Orbital—are the best novels of 2024.
Notable Novels of Fall 2024, recommended by Cal Flyn
Our deputy editor Cal Flyn compiles her autumnal literary fiction highlights: five freshly released and hotly anticipated new novels that you should have on your reading list in the fall of 2024: from Sally Rooney to Garth Greenwell.
