Katherine Dunn
Katherine Dunn is an American author and journalist whose career spans over four decades. She initially made a name for herself as a pioneer of what would come to be known as female noir, exploring dark and unique stories featuring strong, female protagonists not typically seen in fiction of the period. Dunn achieved her greatest fame with her 1989 novel Geek Love, which not only was met with high critical acclaim but was also named one of the one-hundred best novels of the twentieth century by Time Magazine.
Katherine Dunn was born in Clatskanie, Oregon in 1945. She attended Reed College, where she wrote for and eventually edited the college newspaper before graduating in 1968. After finishing college, Dunn moved to Seattle and worked as an editor for the alternative paper Helix for several years. This paper was known as a platform for radical politics and also contained her first forays into fiction writing.
In 1974, Dunn moved to California to pursue a career in writing and journalism full time with her then-husband, Oliver Dunn. She wrote for various local newspapers in the Bay Area and was a regular contributor to the Bay Guardian. In addition to journalism, Dunn also wrote short stories and essays that appeared in various literary magazines. Her first collection of short stories was published by City Lights Books in 1978. Dunn followed it up with her first novel Truck in 1981, which gained some measure of fame as one of the first to explore the genre of female noir.
Dunn continued to write in the noir/suspense genre and penned several well-received novels. However, it was her 1989 release Geek Love which firmly established her as one of the most influential authors of the genre. Geek Love tells the story of an eccentric family whose children were genetically modified to appeal to carnival-goers and sideshow spectators. In addition to its cautionary tale about the consequences of genetic manipulation and exploration of themes of beauty and abnormality, the novel was praised for its lush and vivid language and widely celebrated as a masterful experiment in magical realism. By 1999, Geek Love had been named one of the one-hundred best novels of the twentieth century by Time Magazine and been adapted into both a motion picture and an opera.
Katherine Dunn has remained an active presence in the literary world for the last four decades. She has enjoyed the success of her many works, including her 2001 novel Attic, and continues to contribute essays, short stories, and reviews to various periodicals. While she passed away in 2016, her mark on literature will live on for decades to come.
