Nell Zink

Born in California in 1964, Nell Zink was raised in rural Virginia, a setting she draws on in her second novel, Mislaid. She attended Stuart Hall School and the College of William and Mary. In 1993, while living in West Philadelphia, Zink founded a zine called Animal Review, which ran until 1997.

Zink has worked as a secretary at Colgate-Palmolive and as a technical writer in Tel Aviv. She moved to Germany in May 2000, completing a PhD in Media Studies from the University of Tübingen. Zink has been married twice, to US citizen Benjamin Alexander Burck and to Israeli composer and poet Zohar Eitan.

After 15 years writing fiction exclusively for a single pen pal, the Israeli postmodernist Avner Shats, Zink caught the attention of Jonathan Franzen. The two writers began a correspondence.

In early 2012, Zink sent Franzen her collected manuscripts. Franzen tried unsuccessfully to interest publishers in her 1998 novel. It was Franzen’s agent who ultimately negotiated a six-figure publishing deal for Zink’s Mislaid, a novel she has described as “agent bait”.

The Wallcreeper was published independently in the US in 2014 and named one of 100 Notable Books of 2014 by The New York Times. Zink lives in Bad Belzig, Germany.

The BKBF Interview: Nell Zink

The BKBF Interview with Nell Zink, author of Doxology.

Where is your favorite place to read?

It’s a toss-up between the breakfast table and the train.

What book do you return to most often, whether passages or whole?

The diaries of André Gide, in German. It’s an old linen-bound, rained-on copy I found on a park bench, too beat up to go on a shelf, which is why it’s been on the windowsill in my bathroom for five years.

What’s the last book that had you reading past your bedtime?

The autobiography of Wolf Biermann, an East German dissident singer-songwriter.

Who made reading important to you?

My parents. My mother taught me to read by writing stories in autograph books using just a few letters, à l’oulipo. Whenever I learned new diphthongs, she wrote new stories. I was three. The stories were illustrated and I think they involved bunnies. Pretty soon I had a 100-watt bulb over my bed and permission to read all night. We went to the public library once a week and I checked out ten books every time. TV was strictly limited. I didn’t have a radio until I was 13.

If you had the power to create your own fantasy BKBF panel – any writer or artist, dead or alive – who would you love to see discussing books?

I’d like to see John Clute interview Doris Lessing. Too late for that, but you could still fulfill my other fantasy of a Jonathan Franzen/Bill McKibben debate moderated by Petina Gappah.

BONUS QUESTION: In honor of the 5th anniversary of Children’s Day, we’re asking everyone, What’s your favorite children’s book?

Mistress Masham’s Repose by T.H. White