“But I do have to say that’s my little thing,” Sigrid Nunez told me about the genre she has coined in her novel “The Friend,” winner of the 2018 National Book Award. When asked about the novel’s genre, Nunez delineated where she intended the book to land: “I want [‘The Friend’] to read like memoir…I think of it as sort of like a faux-memoir or faux-auto-fiction.” Known for her synthesis of wit, philosophical inquiry and moral responsibility, Nunez’s novels situate themselves curiously between genres. Since writing “The Friend,” Nunez has written two additional novels, “What Are You Going Through” (2020) and “The Vulnerables” (2023), both of which adhere to this amalgamation of genres. On the topic of fiction versus nonfiction, Nunez made one thing clear with her signature acuity: “And as far as I’m concerned, it’s all true.”
Sigrid Nunez came to Vassar College on Feb. 12 to deliver the honorable Alex Krieger ’95 Memorial Lecture,a series that has hosted authors Jeffrey Eugenides, Zadie Smith and Michael Chabon in past years. The week of Nunez’s visit was a particularly potent week for aspiring writers, as Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian novelist and MacArthur Fellow selected to be the 2026 Writer-in-Residence, was also on campus. Nunez’s lecture, which took place in the Martel Theater at the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film, included short readings from “The Vulnerables”and “The Friend,”as well as a Q&A with novelist and Professor of English on the Helen D. Lockwood Chair Amitava Kumar. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Nunez in The Heartwood lobby prior to her lecture to ask her about her work.
Nunez is a literary encyclopedia. In the short time I spent with her, it was impossible not to notice her abundance of literary knowledge. This proficiency became increasingly obvious when I asked her about the formidable quantity of anecdotes and literary quotations in her work. She humbly admitted that she does not have to research to acquire her quotations, though she does use a commonplace notebook to keep track of quotations and newspaper clippings, a fact she revealed later that evening. These elements are staples of auto-fiction, such as in Maggie Nelson’s “The Argonauts” or “Bluets,” works that Nunez agreed are similar to what she gravitates towards.
In her signature red spectacles, Nunez explained to me that constructing protagonists whose vocations are writer-based allows for this excess in quotation. She humored me by pointing out how odd it would be for a registered nurse protagonist to be entertaining quibblings about Flannery O’Connor. However, there does seem to be a stigma attached to writing writer-characters, according to Nunez: “Generally, you don’t want to write a book about a writer, you know. It’s kind of frowned upon…”
The list of topics a writer must not write about continued later that evening, when Nunez talked about the pandemic. Perhaps one of the most striking moments of the lecture was when Nunez asked the audience a question: Why is it that we go through something that happened once in a century, and we are asked not to write about it? Kumar and Nunez discussed the stigma behind writing “the pandemic novel” and the irony surrounding such limitations. Nunez used the word “strange” to describe public attitudes towards the pandemic as she answered one audience member’s question on the topic of COVID-19. Listening to Nunez emphasize these attitudes was the part of her lecture that stayed with me most. Hearing her speak was like having a light bulb turn on within a room in one’s mind, a room that has always been there, though never illuminated. She shone her wisdom onto all of our blind spots.
Earlier that week, when listening to Dinaw Mengestu’s lecture on his novel “Someone Like Us,” I was compelled by the way Mengestu suggested that not all fictional characters must be empathized with; empathy is not mandatory. This sentiment prompted me to ask Nunez how she decides what level of intimacy or distance is appropriate for a given story, specifically as it relates to “The Friend,” “The Vulnerables” and her acclaimed New Yorker story “Greensleeves.” Nunez told me that she never wants to write a character that is unlikable on purpose. For example, the mentor in “The Friend” was not written maliciously: “I’m totally unaware of making a decision.” Empathy is, rather, something that happens naturally. Nunez informed me that Mengestu’s claim resonated with her: “And I agree with Dinaw. I don’t think that you’re required to show empathy for all characters, or anything like that. I think what your job is, is to create the character as a full character with different sides. And then just see what happens, I mean, to present them in all their humanity.” Nunez went on to explain how wrong it would be to force empathy down a reader’s throat or, on the other end of the spectrum, hatred. Even in her short stories, such as “Greensleeves,” in which the characters are far from her lived experience, she does not plan empathy.
Though a master of the novel, Nunez avidly writes short stories. She shared this with the audience while announcing the publication of an upcoming collection of 13 short stories in July. During her discussion with Professor Kumar, she riffed on the pressure of the short story after Kumar asked her about the difference between anecdotes and stories. While anecdotes fit nicely into a novel, Nunez proposed that the demands of the short story are unforgiving to anecdotes. She jokingly reminded us that we have all heard someone, at some point, rave about a novel, even though a substantial part of it was lacking. This simply does not exist in a short story, according to Nunez.
It was not long before the topic of her Q&A turned to mentorship. Nunez spoke with Professor Kumar about two formative mentors she had: Elizabeth Hardwick and Susan Sontag. She shared that she began working for Sontag nearly accidentally, when, after moving to New York City, a friend of a friend paired the two of them up because Nunez’s apartment was near Sontag’s, and Sontag was recovering from cancer and needed someone to dictate her work. While Hardwick, whom she met when studying at Barnard, was abrasive and severe towards Nunez’s work, saying “I would rather shoot myself than read this story,” Sontag encouraged and motivated Nunez to read as much as possible—Didion, Rilke and Woolf in this case. Her attitude towards Hardwick was not malicious or hyperbolic, nor was her attitude towards Sontag overly sentimental.
Towards the end of her lecture, Kumar asked Nunez which authors she believes are most important to be reading. While she initially protested against listing specific authors, advocating for natural novel selection, she eventually caved, listing Ben Lerner, Tim O’Brien, Jamaica Kincaid and Rilke. These authors, many of whom incorporate nonfiction into their fiction, are the same authors Nunez has taught in her own course titled “Fiction as Autobiography, Autobiography as Fiction”—a course some audience members may have recognized due to its appearance in “The Friend.”
By the end of the lecture, Nunez seamlessly established herself as a beacon of literary thought and as a voice capable of astounding written reflection. As Nunez spoke her final words of the night, she told the audience she was not supposed to be a writer. Sigrid Nunez was supposed to be a dancer. It is because of this failure in dance that she so earnestly turned towards writing. Thank goodness for that, for without this initial failure, we may never have gotten to experience such literary wisdom and erudition from Nunez that evening.
Emma, this is a fantastic summary of what sounds like a truly illuminating lecture. I particularly appreciated your focus on the ‘pandemic novel’ stigma—Nunez’s question about why we are told not to write about such a significant human event is so vital for aspiring writers to hear. Your description of her as a ‘literary encyclopedia’ really captures the weight of her presence, and the detail about her failed dance career adds such a poignant layer to her dedication to the craft. Thank you for bringing Nunez’s wisdom from the Martel Theater to those of us who couldn’t attend!