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Rebecca Solnit

レベッカ・ソルニット

Rebekka Sorunitto

Profile

Gender
Female
Born
Bridgeport, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality
United States
Languages
English

Career

Occupations
Writer, Activist, Essayist, Memoirist
Active Years
1988-
Influenced By
Eduardo Galeano, Pablo Neruda, Ariel Dorfman, Elena Poniatowska, Gabriel García Márquez, Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau
Nominations
The Faraway Nearby — National Book Critics Circle Award (shortlisted)

Education

American University of Paris (formerly American College in Paris)
Period: 10代（短期留学）
Country: France
Studied there at age 17 (short-term study)
San Francisco State University
Degree: BA
Country: United States
Completed undergraduate studies here
University of California, Berkeley
Journalism
Degree: MA
Year of Graduation: 1984
Country: United States
Master's degree in journalism (1984)

Awards

National Book Critics Circle Award (Criticism)
2004
Work: River of Shadows
Category: 批評
Organization: National Book Critics Circle
Result: 受賞
Sally Hacker Prize
2004
Work: River of Shadows
Organization: Society for the History of Technology
Result: 受賞
Mark Lynton History Prize
2004
Work: River of Shadows
Organization: Harvard (J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project related)
Result: 受賞
Corlis Benefideo Award for Imaginative Cartography
2015
Organization: North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS)
Result: 受賞
Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction
2018
Work: Call Them by Their True Names
Category: ノンフィクション
Organization: Kirkus Reviews
Result: 受賞
Windham–Campbell Literature Prize (Non-Fiction)
2019
Category: ノンフィクション
Organization: Windham–Campbell Prizes
Result: 受賞
Paul Engle Prize
Organization: Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature
Result: 受賞
Wired Rave Award (writing)
2004
Organization: Wired
Result: 受賞

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

River of Shadows

2004 Cultural history / History of technology

Uses Eadweard Muybridge and late-19th/early-20th-century technological change to explore cultural history and transformations in visual culture in the American West.

technology and societyvisual cultureAmerican West

A Paradise Built in Hell

2009 Non-fiction / Social history

Historical examination of altruistic community responses in disasters, arguing for the strengths of civil society and shortcomings of institutional authority.

disaster and communityanarchist perspectivessocial solidarity

The Faraway Nearby

2013 Memoir / Essay

A blend of memoir and essay exploring memory, storytelling, illness, and loss, weaving personal experiences with cultural observation.

memorystorytellingself and place

Men Explain Things to Me

2014 Essay / Feminism

Collection of short essays on feminism, notable for popularizing discussions around the phenomenon later labeled 'mansplaining.'

feminismgender and powerdiscourse analysis

Recollections of My Nonexistence

2020 Memoir

A memoir about coming of age in 1980s San Francisco, tracing the emergence of the writer and her identity as a feminist and activist.

coming-of-agefeminismpolitical activism

Cinderella Liberator

2019 Children's literature / Feminist retelling

A feminist retelling of Cinderella that reimagines characters' futures with autonomy and mutual respect.

retelling fairy talesreconstructing gender roles

Bibliography

  • Secret Exhibition: Six California Artists of the Cold War Era
  • Savage Dreams: A Journey Into the Landscape Wars of the American West
  • A Book of Migrations: Some Passages in Ireland
  • Wanderlust: A History of Walking
  • As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender, and Art
  • River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West
  • Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
  • A Field Guide to Getting Lost
  • Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics
  • A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster
  • A California Bestiary
  • Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas
  • The Faraway Nearby
  • Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas
  • Men Explain Things to Me
  • The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness
  • Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas
  • The Mother of All Questions
  • Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays)
  • Drowned River: The Death & Rebirth of Glen Canyon on the Colorado
  • Cinderella Liberator
  • Whose Story Is This?
  • Recollections of My Nonexistence
  • Orwell's Roses
  • Waking Beauty
  • Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility
  • No Straight Road Takes You There

Style & Themes

Literary Style
Essayistic, interdisciplinary proseSpeculative-cultural-historical analysis linking landscape and technologyBlend of personal memoir and scholarly observation
Recurring Motifs
city and landscapedisaster and communitymemory and mobilitygender and power

Legacy

Rebecca Solnit is known for interdisciplinary essays and nonfiction spanning cultural history, feminism, and environmental issues. As a public intellectual she has had wide influence, winning numerous awards and contributing to contemporary thought on feminism and community responses to disaster.

Academic Societies

  • Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature (Paul Engle Prize related)

Quotes

  • What happens in disasters demonstrates everything an anarchist ever wanted to believe about the triumph of civil society and the failure of institutional authority.
    Source: BOMB Magazine interview with Astra Taylor, 2009 (2009)

Trivia

  • She skipped high school and passed the GED before continuing college.
  • Her essay collection Men Explain Things to Me helped popularize discussions around 'mansplaining', though she did not originally use the term.
  • She became the first woman to regularly write the Easy Chair column for Harper's Magazine.
  • Her books have been translated into many languages (e.g., Spanish, French, German).