“It may be that I link every library to that first one - to my early childhood experience of drawing on the floor near my father's desk. A library is of course a real place, but it is also an unreal one. What happens there is mostly silent. I think I've always liked the whispering aspect of libraries, the hushing librarians and my feeling of solitude among many.”

American novelist and essayist

Siri Hustvedt is an American novelist and essayist known for her wide-ranging prose across fiction and nonfiction. She is the author of a book of poetry, seven novels, two books of essays, and several works of nonfiction. Her books include The Blindfold, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, What I Loved, A Plea for Eros, The Sorrows of an American, The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves, The Summer Without Men, Living, Thinking, Looking, The Blazing World, Memories of the Future, and Ghost Stories. What I Loved is the book for which she is best known, and What I Loved and The Summer Without Men were international bestsellers. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages.