Danzy
Senna's first novel, Caucasia (1999), won
the Stephen Crane Award for Best New Fiction, the ALA's Alex Award and was
named a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. Since then she has published
another novel, Symptomatic,
and a memoir, Where Did You Sleep Last Night? You Are Free (trade paper original, Riverhead, May 3, 2011) is
Senna's first collection of stories. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
On your nightstand now:
I'm in the middle of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I recently finished Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust--a cold, lacerating novel, in the best sense.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Charlotte's Web. At five, I memorized the last paragraph and would recite it to my mother in the kitchen while she was cooking, just to make myself weep.
Your top five authors:
Richard Yates, Patricia Highsmith, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Henry James
Book you've faked reading:
Gravity's Rainbow.
Books you're an evangelist for:
Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled. Chris Krauss's I Love Dick. Fran Ross's Oreo. Lydia Davis's The End of the Story.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Percival Everett's Erasure. Plus, I liked the author photo.
Book that changed your life:
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. I was in my early 20s, working in a cubicle at a miserable job. I finished the book one morning on the subway and quit the job the same day.
Favorite line from a book:
Here's one I like: "Though everyone wishes it would not happen, and though it would be far better if it did not happen, it does sometimes happen that a second daughter is born and there are two sisters."--Lydia Davis, from "Two Sisters" in her collection Break It Down.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin.