Mary Rakow
Encyclopedia
Life
She graduated from University of California, RiversideUniversity of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside, commonly known as UCR or UC Riverside, is a public research university and one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system. UCR is consistently ranked as one of the most ethnically and economically diverse universities in the United...
, in 1970, from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
with a Masters Degree in Theological Studies, and from Boston College
Boston College
Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...
with a Ph.D. in Theology. Her work has appeared in Works & Conversations.
She has appeared on Writers on Writing, with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett KUCI-FM.
Rakow is a member of PEN Center USA/West, where she has mentored in the PEN Rosenthal Emerging Voices Program. She is an instructor at the UCLA extension writers' program.
She is a native Californian living in San Francisco.
Awards
- 2003 Lannan Literary Fellowship
- 2003 William Saroyan International Prize for WritingWilliam Saroyan International Prize for WritingThe William Saroyan International Prize for Writing was first awarded in 2003 for 'newly published works of fiction including novels, short stories, dramas or memoirs'...
Theology
- "Christ's Descent into Hell: Calvin's Interpretation", Religion in Life, 43, (Summer 1974)
Reviews
Now this is a book that dives deep into the wreck, a book in which it is always in question whether Barbara, the protagonist, will ever be able to make sense of the moral evil at the heart of her childhood, an evil she repressed for a very long time. The book is formally daring, it is utterly disinterested in the usual cause-and-effect conceits of traditional mainstream narration, opting instead for a collage of Barbara's perception, memory, and evasion of memory, interspersed with fragments of Paul Celan and the Psalms. This is a harrowing, stunning novel.