National Book Award Winner Sigrid Nunez Reads at ODU Literary Festival

The memories of isolation and self-reflection evoked by the recent COVID-19 pandemic are the central theme of The Vulnerables, the ninth book by National Book Award winner Sigrid Nunez.

Nunez was one of the featured authors who appeared at the 47^th Annual Old Dominion University Literary Festival, entertaining a crowd of about 100 community members and ODU students, staff, and faculty at ODU’s University Theatre with an extended reading from her new book.

In The Vulnerables, the narrator forms an unlikely relationship with a talking parrot when thrust into a housesitting role for a wealthy acquaintance, visiting his Manhattan penthouse daily to care for the bird.

Though she said the novel was not written autobiographically, Nunez was inspired to tell the story through her own experience existing during the pandemic. “I was experiencing the same thing that everyone was experience,” she said during a question-and-answer session after her reading. “I wanted to write what I was living in that moment.”

Co-director John McManus, professor in the Department of English, said in his introduction of Nunez that he loves his role with the ODU Literary Festival. “It gives you an excuse to send fan mail to your favorite writers in the world,” he said.

McManus added that the audience was able to truly experience the breadth of Nunez’s ability and intellect with the reading, and then the thoughtful questions from the audience. “She's got an exacting intelligence that she brings to everything she observes, to the extent that you feel almost intimidated in her presence. Nothing she witnesses goes unnoticed,” he said.

Sigrid Nunez was born and raised in New York City, receiving a BA from Barnard College and her MFA from Columbia University. After working as an editorial assistant for the New York Review of Books, Nunez began to write her own novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, What Are You Going Through, and 2018 National Book Award for Fiction winner The Friend. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag.

The Old Dominion University Literary Festival, held ODU’s University Theatre and other sites across campus from Oct. 6-11, showcased 22 writers and other artists.

Top image: Sigrid Nunez reads at University Theatre on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, as part of the Old Dominion University Literary Festival. Photo by Nicholas Clark/ODU