Siri Hustvedt is a highly acclaimed literary fiction author, best known for her novels which explore various themes such as voyeurism, identity, and art. She was born in Northfield, Minnesota and grew up with a father who was a professor of Scandinavian literature and a mother who emigrated from Norway. Hustvedt earned her B.A. in history from St. Olaf College and a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University, where she wrote her thesis on Charles Dickens.
Hustvedt has made a name for herself as a novelist, but her writing extends beyond that to include poetry, short stories, and essays on a variety of subjects. She has been published in several notable publications such as The Art of the Essay, 1999, The Best American Short Stories 1990 and 1991, The Paris Review, Yale Review, and Modern Painters. Her husband, Paul Auster, is also a writer, and they live together in Brooklyn, New York with their daughter, Sophie Auster.
Hustvedt's work often includes repetitive themes or symbols, such as voyeurism and the exploration of identity. She often links objects of the dead to characters who are relative strangers to the deceased characters, as seen in her novels The Blindfold and The Enchantment of Lily Dahl. Painting and painters often appear in her fiction, most notably in her novel, What I Loved. In addition to her fiction, Hustvedt has also written essays on art history and theory and has been recognized for her work with the International Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities in 2012.