Biographical Details

She was born in 1971 in Oxford to German and Australian parents, and was brought up bilingually. She currently lives in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.

Publications and Awards

Seiffert has published three works of fiction to date:

The Dark Room (2001)
a novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Guardian First Book Award in 2001, winner of the LA Times Prize for First Fiction and a Betty Trask Award

Betty Trask Award

The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. The awards were established in 1984 by the Society of Authors, at the bequest of the late Betty Trask, a reclusive author of over thirty romance novels...

 in 2002.

Field Study (2004)
a collection of short stories, one of which received an award from International PEN.

Afterwards (2007)
a novel, long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction

Orange Prize for Fiction

The Orange Prize for Fiction is one of the United Kingdom's most prestigious literary prizes, annually awarded to a female author of any nationality for the best original full-length novel written in English, and published in the United Kingdom in the preceding year...

 the same year.

Seiffert was named as one of Granta

Granta

Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...

's 20 Best of Young British Novelists in 2003, and her short story Field Study was included in the subsequent collection.

In 2011, she received the E.M.Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The citation read: Rachel Seiffert's voice is a quiet, subdued and thoughtful one. It provides a deceptively calm cover for the subject of her books, which is often the cruelty of colonial power and of war and their bitter aftermath. In balancing the two, Seiffert displays an admirable control of her craft.

Her books have been translated into ten languages.

Subjects

Seiffert's subject is the individual in history: how political and economic upheavals impact on ordinary lives. Her characters have included the 12 year old daughter of an SS officer in 1945, a Polish seasonal worker on a German asparagus farm after the fall of the wall, and a London painter and decorator who killed a civilian as a 19-year old squaddie with the British Army in Northern Ireland.

While the situations her characters experience are often harsh, a common thread in Seiffert's stories is the push and pull of family, the persistence of love, and the poetry of everyday life.

Reviews

The Dark Room

Ambitious and powerful...Seiffert writes lean, clean prose. Deftly, she hands large ideas on the vivid private experiences of her characters...Poignant - and ultimately optimistic...Engrossing.' New York Times

Exceptionally well-controlled, imaginative and compassionate, The Dark Room retells well-known events from a strikingly different point of view. Extraordinary. Sunday Times

Explores the experience of "ordinary" Germans - the descendants of Nazis and Nazi sympathisers - and poses questions about the country's psychological and political inheritance with rare insight and humanity. New Yorker

A bold book, and a remarkable one... The novel gathers momentum like a thriller... Touchingly heartfelt. Sunday Telegraph
Field Study

A subtle and impressive collection. This book is so good that even a positive review seems inadequate; the fairest thing to say would be "read it". Seiffert is careful, deliberate, impressively honest. Irish Times

Seiffert is a writer of great delicacy and toughness...good story begetting good story after good story. The Guardian

A magnificent collection: striking, moving and deeply thought-provoking. Financial Times
Afterwards

...about invisible borders, the hard-held Irish border, the border between lovers, between generations, between past and present. It is a fine and profound work. Irish Times

A remarkable feat...precise and searing...one of the most intelligent and ethical writers of her generation. Literary Review

Masterful, delightfully controlled prose... This highly engaging novel continues to reveal itself long after it is read. Sunday Telegraph

Elegant...authentic..One of the significant accomplishments of Afterwards is a coiling suspense driven more by psychology than circumstance. New York TImes