Olivia Sudjic

Olivia Sudjic (born 1988)[1] is a British fiction writer whose first book Sympathy received positive reviews in the press, from publications such as the New York Times,[2] The Guardian[3] and The New Republic.[4]

Olivia Sudjic
NationalityBritish
OccupationNovelist
Known forSympathy (publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Parent(s)Deyan Sudjic
WebsiteOfficial website

Background

Sudjic was born in London, England. Wanting to be a writer since she was a child,[5] Sudjic studied at the City of London School for Girls[6][7] and then read English Literature at Trinity Hall, Cambridge[8][9] where she won the E.G. Harwood English Prize.[10][11][12] About the craft of writing, she believes that "Novels are comparable to social media or crafting online profiles because you begin and you think you’re going to know this person. But this person isn’t real. It’s all made up, and you’re projecting yourself onto it."[13]

Sympathy (2017)

Sympathy revolves around a twenty-something woman visiting New York who becomes obsessed with an older woman via the social media app Instagram. The book is recognized for addressing generational differences: "A child of the age of algorithms, she notices everything but knows the value and significance of nothing."[14] As for the structure, it resembles the disjointed experience of surfing the internet, thereby reinforcing the story's focus on technology.[3]

The reviews for Sympathy have been enthusiastic. The New Republic refers to the novel as "a remarkable debut, and with the arrival of such a novelist we can finally welcome our techno-dystopian future with open arms."[4] According to The New Republic, Sympathy is "The First Great Instagram Novel", dealing with obsession and smartphone technology.[15] The article goes on to say: "Rarely do novels so ostentatiously of the moment succeed so well at gesturing to the universal."[14] The novel was also mentioned in Vanity Fair,[16] The Financial Times,[17][18] The Spectator,[1] The Telegraph,[19] Elle,[20] Esquire,[21] Star Tribune,[22] The Times,[23] The New Yorker[24] and Vice,[25] among others.

Originally from the UK, Sudjic began writing Sympathy in 2014 while staying with her grandmother in Manhattan.[5][26] New York City ended up becoming integral to the story, representing the protagonist's "...searching and longing for connection."[13] In the beginning, Sudjic intended to write an historical novel, but changed her mind and set the story in contemporary times.[26] Sympathy has been described as a feminist work, with Sudjic stating that the internet is male dominated and also that women writers are more pressured to talk about their personal lives then their male counterparts.[27][20]

Exposure (2018)

Sudjic's second book, Exposure, was published on 1 November 2018 by Peninsula Press.

An essay on the anxiety epidemic, autofiction and internet feminism.

After the release of Sympathy, her debut novel which explores surveillance and identity in the internet age, Olivia Sudjic found herself under the microscope. Trapped in an anxious spiral of self-doubt, she became alienated from herself and her work. Blaming her own mental-health masked a wider problem that still persists: the tendency for writing by women, whether fiction or personal testimony, to be invalidated on the grounds of sex.

Drawing on Sudjic’s experience of anxiety — as well as the work of Elena Ferrante, Maggie Nelson, Jenny Offill, Rachel Cusk and others — Exposure examines the damaging assumptions that attend female artists, indeed any woman who risks exposure, as well as the strategies by which one might escape them.

[28]

gollark: *Why* exactly did you not have <#457999277311131649> muted?
gollark: PLEASE cease citronizing, citrons.
gollark: Hmm, apparently not.
gollark: Wait, isn't 172.253.7.65 in the internal IP range?
gollark: ÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆææ cease this.

References
  1. "Tales of three cities - The Spectator". 5 August 2017.
  2. Phillips, Kaitlin (13 April 2017). "In This Tale of Online Intimacy, the Only Wise Characters Are Luddites" – via NYTimes.com.
  3. "Sympathy by Olivia Sudjic, book review: It's a gripping odyssey into one woman's online-addled inner life". 26 April 2017.
  4. "The First Great Instagram Novel".
  5. Maitland, Hayley. "Five Minutes With...Olivia Sudjic".
  6. https://www.pifmagazine.com/2019/03/interview-with-olivia-sudjic
  7. https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/five-minutes-with-olivia-sudjic
  8. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/22/debut-novelists-2017-honeyman-underdown-rooney-ellwood-geary-knox-brooks-sudjic
  9. https://www.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/about/thwomen40/profiles/olivia-sudjic
  10. "Subscribe to read". Financial Times.
  11. "Olivia Sudjic - Pushkin Press". www.pushkinpress.com.
  12. https://www.ft.com/content/206caf0e-6afd-11e7-b9c7-15af748b60d0
  13. "A Conversation with Olivia Sudjic - Read It Forward". 15 May 2017.
  14. Eyre, Hermione (26 May 2017). "Sympathy by Olivia Sudjic review – up-to-the-minute debut". the Guardian.
  15. Livingstone, Josephine (2017-03-17). "The First Great Instagram Novel". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved 2020-02-21.
  16. Crosley, Sloane. "What to Read Right Now: Peter Heller's Celine, Sheryl Sandberg's Option B, and More".
  17. https://www.ft.com/content/4b74a290-414c-11e7-82b6-896b95f30f58
  18. "Subscribe to read". Financial Times.
  19. Bird, Orlando (11 May 2017). "What will 'the great internet novel' be like?" – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  20. "Olivia Sudjic Talks To ELLE About Her First Novel 'Sympathy', Navigating Social Media And Being A Millennial Rent-A-Voice". 2 June 2017.
  21. "12 Books Perfect For Your Summer Holiday". 12 July 2017.
  22. "Review: 'Sympathy,' by Olivia Sudjic".
  23. Wilson, Fiona (27 May 2017). "Review: Sympathy by Olivia Sudjic" – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
  24. Yorker, The New (24 October 2017). "What We're Reading This Week" – via www.newyorker.com.
  25. "'Sympathy' Is the Debut Novel From Olivia Sudjic About Instagram and Intimacy". 28 April 2017.
  26. Beckerman, Hannah; Clark, Alex; O'Keeffe, Alice; Kellaway, Kate; Sethi, Anita; Lewis, Tim; Parkinson, Hannah Jane; Cross, Stephanie; O'Kelly, Lisa (22 January 2017). "Meet the new faces of fiction for 2017". the Guardian.
  27. "45 Queer and Feminist Books You Need To Read in Early 2017". 16 January 2017.
  28. "Exposure by Olivia Sudjic". Peninsula Press.
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