Said@Duke: Rachel Kushner on the Magic of Writing

Rachel Kushner: Part of consciousness is that you make observations daily that are secrets. There are things that each person knows about the world that only they know, and the wonderful part of writing is to take those things and put them into a form.

Booker 2024 shortlist and National Book Award longlist nominee Rachel Kushner, author of “Creation Lake” and other acclaimed novels, gave the keynote address at the annual Blackburn Literary Festival Oct. 19. In her address, Kushner paid tribute to the late Fredric Jameson, long-time Duke professor in the Program in Literature, noting how how Jameson’s ideas on history and literature were important to her writing.

After the address, Kushner was joined on stage by authors Claire Messud and Paul Yoon and Duke creative writing professor Ahkil Sharma for a discussion of “History and Its Alternatives.”

Sponsored by the Department of English and Duke Arts, the Blackburn festival is named after legendary Duke creative writing teacher William Blackburn.

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