Sigrid Nunez on the Writer’s Life

Abstract The Friend (2018), the seventh novel of Sigrid Nunez, won the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction. It not only tells a touching story about the human-canine bond between the narrator and a huge Great Dane but also involves much meditation on writing as a profession and the universal concerns of humanity. Looking back at her writing career, Nunez talks about her beliefs as a writer, her observation of the contemporary literary scene, her evaluation of the status of fiction in the current era, her teaching experiences in writing programs, and her personal story as a child of immigrants and a former assistant to Susan Sontag. According to Nunez, a life of solitude is conducive to writing books, and experiences of frustration are normal for a writer. However, she maintains that writing should be seen as a vocation instead of a means of self-advancement. With respect to new trends in literary culture, Nunez believes the house of fiction does have many rooms, and the definition of a novel has become much broader.