“The true self seeks release, not constraint. It doesn't want to be corseted in a sonnet or made to learn a system of musical notations. It wants liberation, which is why very often it fastens on the novel, for the novel seems spacious, undefined, free.”

English novelist and writer, contemporary

Rachel Cusk is an English novelist and writer of memoir and other nonfiction. She is known for fiction and prose published across several books, and for a career that has drawn award recognition. Her work has won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Somerset Maugham Award, and has also been shortlisted and longlisted for prizes including the Governor General's Award and the Booker Prize. Her writing often addresses motherhood, marriage, satire, and more experimental approaches to narrative.