Five Questions With Sigrid Nunez

The author of six novels, including The Last of Her Kind and Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag, Sigrid Nunez has contributed to The New York Times, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, and Tin House. She was the Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, won a Whiting Award, and has been published in four Pushcart Prize volumes. She was elected as a Literature Fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and currently teaches a fiction workshop at NYU.

Featuring one of the best lines of overheard coffee shop banter, this micro interview was conducted via email with the wonderful Sigrid Nunez.

— Hannah Gilham

1. Something interesting you overheard today?

In a café, an older woman was talking to a friend. “The doctor says I weigh too much and so I have to eat less. I said, That’s not fair. Food is the only sex I have.”

2. What did you imagine you would be when you grew up?

A writer of rhyming children’s books like those by Dr. Seuss.

3. What is the scariest thing you’ve ever read?

The headline of The New York Times, November 9, 2016: TRUMP TRIUMPHS.

4. What's your least favorite thing about Thanksgiving?

The thought of all those poor factory-farmed, slaughtered birds.

5. What is your favorite neighborhood in the city?

Alas, overdevelopment has destroyed the character of the many neighborhoods I used to love. Now my favorite places are Central Park and the botanical gardens in Brooklyn and the Bronx.