Critical Mass: NBCC Fiction Finalist Ruth Ozeki in Conversation with MFA Student Mallory McMahon

Thanks to The School of Writing at The New School, as well as the tireless efforts of their students and faculty, we are able to provide interviews with each of the NBCC Awards Finalists for the publishing year 2013. …

Here, NBCC Fiction Finalist Ruth Ozeki talks with MFA Student Mallory McMahon. See the School of Writing page for more.

February 12, 2014
NBCC Fiction Finalist Ruth Ozeki in Conversation with MFA Student Mallory McMahon
Critical Mass, National Book Critics Circle blog
Mallory McMahon

NBCC: 30 Books: Mark Athitakis on Ruth Ozeki’s “A Tale for the Time Being”

This magical yet earthbound novel reveals and exemplifies the freedom you gain when you’re willing to rethink what “connection” means, and consider that it’s a different thing in every living moment.
— Mark Athitakis, Critical Mass, National Book Critics Circle blog

January 28, 2014
Critical Mass,National Book Critics Circle blog
30 Books: Mark Athitakis on Ruth Ozeki’s “A Tale for the Time Being”
Mark Athitakis

 

St Louis Post-Dispatch: Readable and funny, Ruth Ozeki's novel meditates on time

I am really interested in the way we relate to time,” she says by phone from New York. “In particular, the way readers and writers talk to each other. Casting your voice out into the future is very beautiful to me.
— Ruth Ozeki

January 09, 2014
St Louis Post-Dispatch
Readable and funny, Ruth Ozeki's novel meditates on time
Jane Henderson 

Salon: A powerful, beautiful book

Ozeki is one of the smartest (and funniest) writers I know, and in this novel she flat-out knocks it out of the park. “A Tale for the Time Being” is as layered and mysterious as life and it’s overwhelmingly wise, reaching across lands and language and time to show the unity, solitude, confusion and hope at the heart of the human experience. A powerful, beautiful book.
— Junot Díaz, Salon

December 26, 2013
Salon
Salon’s Ultimate Book Guide For 2013
Michele Filgate

The Japan Times: Ozeki’s work reflects her complex identity

Ruth Ozeki’s recent novel, the 2013 Man Booker-shortlisted “A Tale For the Time Being,” is best described as a hybrid: a fictional masterpiece with footnotes and appendices like a research paper; a colorful scrawl of inventive creativity marked by scientific asides ranging from ocean gyres to quantum mechanics; a playful meta-fiction, the memoir Ozeki never wrote — an unforgettable Zen collusion of time and space housed within a paper shell.
— Kris Kosaka, The Japan Times

November 23,2013
The Japan Times
Ozeki’s work reflects her complex identity
Kris Kosaka