Kirsten Bakis
Kirsten Bakis (born 1967 Switzerland) is an American novelist.[1]
Biography[]
Bakis was raised in Westchester County, New York, and graduated from New York University in 1990. She is a recipient of a Teaching/Writing Fellowship from the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, a grant from the Michener/Copernicus Society of America.
She published her first novel, Lives of the Monster Dogs, in 1997.[2] In 2017, the novel was reissued.[2][3]
She has taught at Hampshire College and was a writer-in-residence at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York in 2005. She is currently living in Croton-on-Hudson, New York with her husband, their two children, and two dogs, and is at work on her second novel.
Critical reception[]
Lives of the Monster Dogs received mostly positive reviews. Critics praised it for its originality, while also noting some of its drawbacks as science fiction.[4] Following the 2017 reissue, Jeff Vandermeer of The Atlantic writes, "20 years later, as it gets a much-deserved reissue, Lives of the Monster Dogs feels undeniably like a classic."[2] Tobias Carroll of Tor.com writes in 2017, "The novel opens with a nearly perfect first line: "In the years since the monster dogs were here with us, in New York, I’ve often been asked to write something about the time I spent with them.""[5] Sharona Lin of Guernica writes in 2020, "It’s a wild and fantastical tale with all the hallmarks of a gothic classic: there’s a mad Prussian scientist, a secretive village, an existential crisis, a pondering of what it truly means to be human."[3]
Awards[]
- 2004 Whiting Award for fiction
- New York Times Notable Book for the year, for Lives of the Monster Dogs[2]
- Orange Prize for Fiction shortlisted, for Lives of the Monster Dogs[2]
- Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, for Lives of the Monster Dogs[2]
Works[]
Books[]
- Lives of the Monster Dogs, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997 ISBN 978-0-446-67416-4
Stories[]
- "The Thief". Tin House (65). Fall 2015.
References[]
- ^ Burt, Daniel S. (editor) (c. 2004). The Chronology of American Literature. Houghton Mifflin. p. 716. ISBN 0-618-16821-4. Retrieved May 16, 2010.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Vandermeer, Jeff (May 9, 2017). "When Talking Canines Took Over New York". The Atlantic. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Lin, Sharona (March 11, 2020). "Ruff Reckoning". Guernica. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
- ^ "Kirsten Bakis." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 June 2014.
- ^ Carroll, Tobias (May 15, 2017). "The Monstrous and the Tragic: Kirsten Bakis's Lives of the Monster Dogs". Tor.com. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
External links[]
| hide Authority control  | |
|---|---|
| General | |
| National libraries | |
  | This article about a novelist of the United States born in the 1960s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by . |
- Living people
- Swiss emigrants to the United States
- New York University alumni
- American women novelists
- Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
- 1967 births
- 20th-century American novelists
- 20th-century American women writers
- 21st-century American women writers
- American novelist, 1960s birth stubs