Rebecca Makkai

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Rebecca Makkai
Rebecca Makkai 2023 Texas Book Festival.jpg
Makkai at the 2023 Texas Book Festival
Born (1978-04-20) April 20, 1978 (age 46)
OccupationWriter
Education Washington and Lee University (BA)
Middlebury College (MA)
Notable worksThe Great Believers (2018)
Website
rebeccamakkai.com

Rebecca Makkai (born April 20, 1978) is an American novelist and short-story writer, and was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Makkai grew up in Lake Bluff, Illinois. She is the daughter of linguistics professors Valerie Becker Makkai and Ádám Makkai  [ hu ], a refugee to the US following the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Her paternal grandmother, Rózsa Ignácz  [ hu ], was a well-known actress and novelist in Hungary. [2] She earned a master's degree from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English. [3]

Career

Writing

Makkai's debut novel, The Borrower, was released in June 2011. [3] [4] It was a Booklist Top Ten Debut, an Indie Next pick, an O, The Oprah Magazine selection, [5] and one of Chicago's choices for best fiction of 2011. [1] It was translated into seven languages.

Her second novel, The Hundred-Year House, is set in the Northern suburbs of Chicago, and was published by Viking Press/Penguin Random House in July 2014. [1] [6] It received starred reviews in Booklist , Publishers Weekly and Library Journal . The book won the 2015 Novel of the Year award from the Chicago Writers Association and was named a best book of 2014 by BookPage.

Makkai's third novel, titled The Great Believers , is set during the AIDS epidemic in 1980s Chicago and was published by Viking/Penguin Random House in June 2018. [7] The Great Believers won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction [8] and was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction. [9] It was also a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, [10] and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, [11] the ALA Stonewall Award, [12] and the Chicago Review of Books Award. [13]

Makkai's fourth novel, I Have Some Questions For You , was published by Viking in February 2023, and it debuted at number three on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Makkai's debut short story collection, Music for Wartime, was published by Viking in June 2015. A starred and featured review in Publishers Weekly said, "Though these stories alternate in time between WWII and the present day, they all are set, as described in the story "Exposition", within "the borders of the human heart"—a terrain that their author maps uncommonly well." [14] The Kansas City Star wrote that "if any short story writer can be considered a rock star of the genre, it's Rebecca Makkai." [15]

Her short stories have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 and as well as in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009 and 2016; she received a 2017 Pushcart Prize, a 2014 NEA fellowship, and a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship. Makkai's fiction has also appeared in The New Yorker , [16] Ploughshares , Tin House , The Threepenny Review , New England Review , and Shenandoah . [1] [3] Her nonfiction has appeared in Harpers, Salon.com, and TheNew Yorker website. Makkai's stories have also been featured on Public Radio International's Selected Shorts and This American Life. [17]

Teaching

Makkai has taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is on the MFA faculties of Bennington College and Northwestern University. She is the artistic director of StoryStudio Chicago. [18] Makkai has also taught at Lake Forest College [19] and held the Mackey Chair in Creative Writing at Beloit College in Wisconsin. [20]

Personal life

She has two children and lives in Lake Forest, Illinois. [21] She met her husband, Jon Freeman, at Bread Loaf. [22]

Awards and honors

Awards for Makkai's writing
YearTitleAwardResultRef.
2017 Pushcart Prize Winner[ citation needed ]
2018The Great Believers National Book Award for Fiction Finalist [9]
2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Winner [8]
Pulitzer Prize in Fiction Finalist [10]
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner [11]
American Library Association Stonewall Award Winner [12]
Chicago Review of Books AwardWinner [13]
2024I Have Some Questions for You Aspen Words Literary Prize Longlist [23]

Bibliography

Novels

Short story collections

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References

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  5. "The Borrower". Oprah.com. Archived from the original on February 23, 2014. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
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  18. "Faculty of the Master of Arts in Writing". Northwestern University School of Professional Studies. Archived from the original on December 5, 2020. Retrieved December 7, 2020.
  19. "Rebecca Freeman". Lake Forest College . Archived from the original on May 27, 2023. Retrieved December 7, 2020.
  20. "Rebecca Makkai". Beloit College . Archived from the original on October 20, 2020. Retrieved December 7, 2020.
  21. Borrelli, Christopher (June 20, 2018). "Rebecca Makkai, author of Chicago-set 'The Great Believers,' knows the value of diligence". Chicago Tribune . Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved December 7, 2020.
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