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{{Short description|Mexican-American novelist and writer (born 1971)}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name = Chloe Aridjis<br /><small></small>
| image = Dr Chloe Aridjis.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = Aridjis reading from ''Book of Clouds''
| birth_name =
| birth_date =
| birth_place = [[New York City]], U.S.
| nationality = {{hlist|Mexican|American}}
| death_date =
| death_place =
| occupation = Novelist
| language = English
| education =
| alma_mater = [[Harvard University]]<br>[[University of Oxford]]
| period = Contemporary
| movement =
| genre = {{hlist|[[Literary fiction]]|[[Magical realism]]}}
| notableworks = ''Book of Clouds'' (2009)<br>''Asunder'' (2013)<br>''Sea Monsters'' (2019)<br>''Dialogue With a Somnambulist'' (2021, 2023)
| relatives = {{Plainlist|
* [[Homero Aridjis]] (father)
* [[Eva Aridjis]] (sister)
}}
| awards = [[Prix du Premier Roman|Prix du Premier Roman Étranger]] (2009)<br>[[PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction]] (2020)<br>Prado Museum Writing the Prado Residency (2023)
| website = {{URL|http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/authors/chloe-aridjis}}
| signature =
}}
'''Chloe Aridjis''' (born 1971) is a Mexican and American novelist and writer. Her novel ''Book of Clouds'' (2009) was published in eight countries, and won the [[Prix du Premier Roman|Prix du Premier Roman Étranger]]. Her second novel, ''Asunder'' was published in 2013 to unanimous acclaim.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.theomnivore.com/asunder-by-chloe-aridjis/|title=The Omnivore » Asunder by Chloe Aridjis}}</ref> Her third novel, ''Sea Monsters'' (2019), was awarded the [[PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction]] in 2020.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.penfaulkner.org/2020/04/06/announcing-the-winner-of-the-2020-pen-faulkner-award-for-fiction-sea-monsters-by-chloe-aridjis/|title=Announcing the Winner of the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: SEA MONSTERS by Chloe Aridjis | The PEN/Faulkner Foundation|date=6 April 2020}}</ref> She is the eldest daughter of Mexican poet and diplomat [[Homero Aridjis]] and American Betty F. de Aridjis, an environmental activist and translator. She is the sister of film maker [[Eva Aridjis]]. She has a doctorate in nineteenth-century French poetry and magic from the [[University of Oxford]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://groveatlantic.com/news-room/|title=News Room|website=Grove Atlantic|date=23 January 2017 }}</ref>
==Biography==
Born in [[New York City]], Chloe Aridjis grew up in [[Mexico City]] and the [[Netherlands]], where her father served as Mexico's ambassador. Aridjis studied comparative literature at [[Harvard University]] and wrote a thesis on "Night and the Poetic Self" in [[Charles Baudelaire]]'s ''[[Les Fleurs du mal]]'' at the [[University of Oxford]], under the supervision of [[Malcolm Bowie]] before completing a doctorate on "the interface between high and popular art in nineteenth-century France with a special focus on the relationship between poetry, magic shows and literature of the fantastic".<ref name="nighttrainmagazine.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.nighttrainmagazine.com/contents/aridjis_int.php |title=Night Train - Interview - Chloe Aridjis |access-date=2012-11-26 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218075148/http://www.nighttrainmagazine.com/contents/aridjis_int.php |archive-date=2012-02-18 }}</ref><ref name="thejc.com">{{Cite web |url=http://www.thejc.com/arts/arts-interviews/interview-chloe-aridjis |title=Interview: Chloe Aridjis | the Jewish Chronicle |access-date=2010-02-20 |archive-date=2009-09-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090930013335/http://www.thejc.com/arts/arts-interviews/interview-chloe-aridjis |url-status=dead }}</ref> As a teenager she had a bilingual exposure to pop in Mexico City, listening to British bands while discovering their Mexican equivalents at a gay [[Goth subculture|goth]] club.<ref name="bbc.co.uk">{{cite web | title=The Documentary, Sleevenotes, Chloe Aridjis | website=BBC | date=2020-12-14 | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010hfnj | access-date=2021-01-07}}</ref>
She met great [[poet]]s such as [[Jorge Luis Borges]] and [[Ted Hughes]] at international poetry festivals her parents organised in the early 1980s. This had a lasting effect on Aridjis, who maintained a correspondence with several of them throughout her adolescence.<ref name="nighttrainmagazine.com"/> Her favourite authors include [[Nikolai Gogol]], [[Samuel Beckett]], [[Thomas Bernhard]], [[Franz Kafka]], [[Miguel de Cervantes]], [[Edgar Allan Poe]], [[Horacio Quiroga]], Charles Baudelaire,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-lifetime-le-spleen-de-paris-charles-baudelaire-8647519.html|title=Book of a lifetime: Le Spleen de Paris, By Charles Baudelaire|first=Chloe |last=Aridjis|date=June 6, 2013|website=The Independent}}</ref> [[Gérard de Nerval]], [[Stéphane Mallarmé]], [[Arthur Rimbaud]], [[Walter Benjamin]], [[Robert Walser (writer)|Robert Walser]],<ref name="nighttrainmagazine.com"/> [[Gaston Bachelard]], [[Comte de Lautréamont]] and [[René Daumal]].<ref name="frieze.com">{{Cite journal|url=https://www.frieze.com/article/ideal-syllabus-chloe-aridjis|title=Ideal Syllabus: Chloe Aridjis | Frieze|journal=Frieze |date=20 June 2013 |issue=156 |last1=Aridjis |first1=Chloe }}</ref>
Her book of essays on ''Magic and the Literary Fantastique in Nineteenth-Century France'' was published in 2002. Her doctoral thesis was published in Spanish as ''Topografía de lo insólito: La magia y lo fantástico literario en la Francia del siglo XIX'' (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2005).<ref name="nighttrainmagazine.com"/> She publishes in journals and newspapers in England, [[Mexico]], among them essays for ''[[Granta]]'' on insomnia and the psychological fallout of space travel on Soviet cosmonauts.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://granta.com/contributor/chloe-aridjis/|title=Chloe Aridjis}}</ref> Aridjis lived in [[Berlin]] for five years, and currently resides in [[London]]. She has been vegetarian since 1986.<ref name="nighttrainmagazine.com"/>
Her [[debut novel]] ''Book of Clouds'' was published in the US by [[Grove Press]] in winter 2009, and by [[Chatto and Windus]] in the UK in July 2009, in the Netherlands, and by ''[[Mercure de France]]'' in September 2009. It was published in Mexico, Spain, [[Romania]] and [[Croatia]] in 2011 and as a graphic novel in French in early 2012. In his review of ''Book of Clouds'' for ''[[The Independent]]'', [[Daniel Hahn]] described it as an "exceptional debut novel".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/book-of-clouds-by-chloe-aridjis-1764500.html |title=Book of Clouds, by Chloe Aridjis - New Articles - the Independent |website=[[Independent.co.uk]] |access-date=2017-08-25 |archive-date=2015-09-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925033340/http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/book-of-clouds-by-chloe-aridjis-1764500.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> In ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[Wendy Lesser]] described it as "a stunningly accurate portrait of Berlin".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/books/review/Lesser-t.html|title=Berlin Story (Published 2009)|first=Wendy|last=Lesser|newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 12, 2009}}</ref> [[Regina Marler]] in the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' drew attention to Aridjis's "magic and poetry", and described "an unsettling atmosphere unlike anything in recent fiction."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-apr-03-et-book3-story.html|title=Human footprints as fleeting as the weather|first=Regina |last=Marler|date=April 3, 2009|website=Los Angeles Times}}</ref>
In November 2009, ''Book of Clouds'' won the [[Prix du Premier Roman|Prix du Premier Roman Étranger]] in France.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sodis.fr/Pages/detailsActu.aspx?Pere=3&Fils=41&SFils=&idA=63 |title=Sodis |access-date=2009-11-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091107171635/http://www.sodis.fr/Pages/detailsActu.aspx?Pere=3&Fils=41&SFils=&idA=63 |archive-date=2009-11-07 }}</ref>
Her second novel, ''Asunder'', was published in May 2013 by Chatto and Windus in [[London]], and in September by [[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]] in New York City.<ref name="bbc.co.uk"/> The novel concerns two museum guards, one at the [[National Gallery]] in London, for whom life and art begin to overtake each other in surreal and unsettling ways.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.agentquery.com/agent_print.aspx?agentid=379|title=AgentQuery :: Find the Agent Who Will Find You a Publisher|website=www.agentquery.com}}</ref> It involves a trip to [[Paris]], and carefully contained worlds torn apart.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.penguin.co.uk/company/about-us.html/catalogue-file/1024|title=About us|website=www.penguin.co.uk}}</ref> The ''[[Times Literary Supplement]]'' wrote of it: "Chloe Aridjis is crafting a poetics of the strange ... This is deft and shimmering fiction"; ''[[The Guardian]]'' described the novel as "Strange, extravagant, darkly absorbing ... thrills with energy."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hmhco.com/shop/books/Asunder/9780544003460|title=Order Asunder, ISBN 0544003462 | HMH|website=www.hmhco.com}}</ref>
Her third novel, ''Sea Monsters'', was published in February 2019. ''[[The New Yorker]]'' referred to it as "a hypnotic narrative of disenchantment",<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/chloe-aridjiss-sea-monsters-is-a-hypnotic-narrative-of-disenchantment|title=Chloe Aridjis's "Sea Monsters" Is a Hypnotic Narrative of Disenchantment|first=Katy|last=Waldman|magazine=The New Yorker|date=February 13, 2019}}</ref> while ''The Atlantic'' called it "a strange symbolist novel that would make Mallarmé proud"<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/02/chloe-aridjiss-sea-monsters-strange-symbolist-novel/582535/|title=The Strange Beach Novel That Would Make Mallarmé Proud|first=Lily|last=Meyer|date=February 17, 2019|website=The Atlantic}}</ref> and wrote: "Like a magician, Aridjis is obsessed with elusiveness; like a symbolist, she far prefers imagination and metaphor to plain sight."<ref name="auto"/> ''Sea Monsters'' won the [[PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction]] in 2020.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Mendoza|first=Enrique|url=https://zetatijuana.com/2020/04/chloe-aridjis-gana-premio-pen-faulkner-de-ficcion-2020/|title=Chloe Aridjis gana Premio Pen/Faulkner de Ficción 2020|date=April 9, 2020|work=zetatijuana.com}}</ref>
Aridjis was awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] in 2014.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/17527-chloe-aridjis |title=Chloe Aridjis - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |access-date=2014-07-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714184540/http://www.gf.org/fellows/17527-chloe-aridjis |archive-date=2014-07-14 }}</ref> In 2020, she was awarded the Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writers Award for her forthcoming novel entitled ''Reports from the Land of the Bats''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://hayfestival.com/eccles-centre-hay-festival-writers-award|title=The Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writers Award|website=hayfestival.com}}</ref> In the same year, she was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-09-01 |title=Aridjis, Chloe |url=https://rsliterature.org/fellows/chloe-aridjis/ |access-date=2025-07-09 |website=[[Royal Society of Literature]] |language=en-GB}}</ref>
She was co-curator of the [[Leonora Carrington]] exhibition at [[Tate Liverpool]] that opened in March 2015<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/leonora-carrington-transcended-her-stolid-background-become-avant-garde-star-10086215.html|title=Leonora Carrington transcended her stolid background to become an avant garde star|first=Boyd|last=Tonkin|author-link=Boyd Tonkin|date=March 4, 2015|website=The Independent}}</ref> and she occasionally writes for ''frieze''<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.frieze.com/article/tea-and-creatures-leonora-carrington|title=Tea and Creatures with Leonora Carrington | Frieze|journal=Frieze |date=October 2017 |issue=6 |last1=Aridjis |first1=Chloe }}</ref> and other art journals. In 2018 she starred in Josh Appignanesi's arthouse film "Female Human Animal."<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://www.frieze.com/article/how-female-human-animal-blends-documentary-fiction |title=How 'Female Human Animal' Blends Documentary with Fiction|journal=Frieze |date=27 September 2018 }}</ref>
In February 2016, her English translation of her father's book ''The Child Poet'' was published.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archipelagobooks.org/book/the-child-poet/|title=The Child Poet by Homero Aridjis|website=Archipelago Books}}</ref>
Aridjis is a member of Writers Rebel, a group of writers that focuses on the climate emergency. She is particularly interested in issues involving species extinction, and animal welfare in general.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://writersrebel.com/about/|title=About|website=writersrebel.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-10-01|title=UK's Top Writers speak truth to power to highlight the Ecological and Climate Emergency|url=https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2019/10/01/uks-top-writers-speak-truth-to-power-to-highlight-the-ecological-and-climate-emergency/|access-date=2022-01-31|website=Extinction Rebellion UK|language=en-GB}}</ref>
==Works==
*''Magic and the Literary Fantastique in Nineteenth-Century France''. University of Oxford, 2002.
*''Topografía de lo insólito''. Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 2005.
*''Book of Clouds''. London: Chatto and Windus, 2009.
*{{cite book|title=Asunder|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=urSX6yfGxOsC|year=2013|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|isbn=978-0-544-00351-4}}<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/31/asunder-chloe-aridjis-review|title=Asunder by Chloe Aridjis – review|newspaper=The Guardian|first=Alexandra|last=Harris|author-link= Alexandra Harris|date=31 May 2013|quote=She dares add one more straining element because she knows that her novel – like the paintings she most admires – will be more intensely alive the more it seems to be just on the verge of falling apart.}}</ref>
*{{cite book|title=Book of Clouds|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hgrGvjInpVgC|year=2009|publisher=Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated|isbn=978-1-55584-919-1}}
* ''Sea Monsters''. Chatto & Windus, 2019.
* ''Dialogue with a Somnambulist: Stories, Essays & a Portrait Gallery''. House Sparrow Press, 2021. {{ISBN|978-1-913513-29-0}}.
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010hfnj BBC Sleevenotes radio interview about Chloe Aridjis's musical taste.]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120218075148/http://www.nighttrainmagazine.com/contents/aridjis_int.php Chloe Aridjis interview with Zett Aguado] in ''Nighttrain Magazine''.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130716030841/http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/ideal-syllabus-chloe-aridjis/ Frieze Magazine | Archive | Ideal Syllabus: Chloe Aridjis]
*[http://www.exberliner.com/books/76/chloe-aridjis-book-clouds/ Interview with Chloe Aridjis about 'Book of Clouds'] in Exberliner Magazine]{{dead link|date=August 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20170302111920/http://www.literaturfestival.com/archive/participants/authors/2014/chloe-aridjis?set_language=en Biography from the Berlin International Literature Festival]
*{{IMDb name|2034376}}
*[https://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-book3-2009apr03,0,7720607.story Review of ''Book of Clouds''], ''Los Angeles Times''
*[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/books/review/Lesser-t.html?ref=books Review of ''Book of Clouds''], ''The New York Times''
*[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/books/chapters/chapter-book-of-clouds.html First chapter of 'Book of Clouds'], ''[[The New York Times]]''
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20091004151723/http://www.granta.com/Online-Only/Portrait-of-my-father-Chloe-Aridjis "Portrait of my Father"], ''Granta''.
*[http://berlinstories.org/2009/02/24/chloe-aridjis-on-the-ghost-stations/ Chloe Aridjis reads "Ghost Stations"]
*[https://archive.today/20130219044311/http://www.aztecanoticias.com.mx/capitulos/cultura/68475/cultura/ interview with chloe aridjis on Mexican TV]
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:
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[[Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford]]
[[Category:American expatriates in England]]
[[Category:American people of Greek descent]]
[[Category:American women essayists]]
[[Category:American women novelists]]
[[Category:American writers of Mexican descent]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature]]
[[Category:Harvard University alumni]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Mexican expatriates in England]]
[[Category:Mexican people of Greek descent]]
[[Category:Mexican women novelists]]
[[Category:Novelists from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Writers from Mexico City]]
[[Category:Writers from New York City]]
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