According to the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Butler was “an introspective, only child in a strict Baptist household” and was drawn early to science fiction magazines such as “Amazing,” “Fantasy,” “Science Fiction,” and “Galaxy,” and soon began reading all the science fiction classics. She grew up in a struggling, racially mixed neighborhood. Butler), who worked as a maid in order to support the family. Her father Laurice, died when she was a baby, and Butler was raised by her grandmother and her mother (Octavia M. Octavia Estelle Butler was born and raised in Pasadena, California. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant. She was a celebrated American Science Fiction author, who excelled in a genre with few African-American women. Davidson additionally won a Pulitzer Prize in Criticism at Newsday in 2002.Octavia Butler was born on J(to February 24, 2006). in Comparative Literature from New York University, and she has published on academic subjects in differences, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Women & Performance, and Transgender Studies Quarterly.Īt New York, Chu joins Pulitzer Prize winner Jerry Saltz (Criticism, 2018) and finalists Justin Davidson and Craig Jenkins (Criticism, 20) in receiving this recognition. Her essay “China Brain” was selected for Best American Essays 2022. Her essay in support of the graduate student who accused NYU professor Avital Ronell of sexual harassment was reprinted in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019.

Her debut essay, “On Liking Women,” published by n+1 in 2018, has become essential reading in gender-studies classes across the country. Previously, Chu’s book Females, an extended annotation of a lost play by Valerie Solanas, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Nonfiction. In addition to the Pulitzer win, Chu was a finalist for the 2023 National Magazine Award in Reviews and Criticism. Out of that friction comes a review whose publication is always an event. In her writing, Chu reveals herself, too: Readers can start to discern how she gravitates toward authors she doesn’t fully agree with, where there might be a little friction inherent to the critical project. “This is the problem with writing to wake people up: Your ideal reader is inevitably asleep,” she writes of Ottessa Moshfegh’s books.

Part of the pleasure of reading Chu comes from her fearlessness her pieces are often celebrated on Twitter with sayings like “I would like to report a murder.” Her sentences are exquisitely crafted, and she articulates fundamental truths about the work as precisely as possible. When preparing to review a new book, she reads the author’s entire body of work, along with every interview that author has ever given, in an attempt to burrow herself into that writer’s worldview.”Ĭhu joined New York in late 2021, and in that short time, she has reinvigorated the world of book criticism. “She’s most interested in the ways some writers are always revealing themselves: via their politics, especially, and their fixations. “Andrea Long Chu’s literary criticism is remarkable for its scope as much as its pyrotechnics,” said New York editor-in-chief David Haskell. In the last year, Chu’s work - from her incisive critique of author Hanya Yanagihara to her examination of the recent trend of the mixed-race Asian character in literature - has made an indelible mark on readers and the industry as a whole. Andrea Long Chu, New York Magazine’s book critic, was today named the recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism.

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