Susan Choi

Template:Short description Template:Infobox writer Susan Choi (born 1969) is an American novelist. She is the author of several acclaimed novels, including The Foreign Student (1998), American Woman (2003), and Trust Exercise (2019), which won the National Book Award for Fiction. She is shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, for her most recent novel Flashlight.

Early life and education

Born in 1969 in South Bend, Indiana, United States, to a Korean father and an American Jewish mother, Choi attended public schools. When she was nine years old, her parents divorced. She and her mother moved to Houston, Texas, where she attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Choi earned a B.A. degree in Literature from Yale University (1990) and an M.F.A. from Cornell University.<ref name="About the author">Template:Cite book</ref>

Career

File:Susan Choi 2019 National Book Festival.webm

Choi at the 2019 National Book Festival

After receiving her graduate degree, she worked for The New Yorker as a fact checker. At this job she met her husband, Pete Wells, whom she married. They separated in 2016 but continue to share a house in Brooklyn and co-parent their two sons.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="parker">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="About the author"/>

Choi published her first novel, The Foreign Student, in 1998. It won the Asian American Literary Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award.Template:Citation needed In 2000, she edited (with David Remnick) Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker, an anthology of short fiction.

Her second novel, American Woman (2003), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in literature.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2010, she won the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award for A Person of Interest, which was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2009.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2014, her fourth novel, My Education, won the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

As of May 2018, Choi was working on a novel employing conventions of memoir and reportage that "takes up the question of national identity, and the extent to which it coincides or does not coincide with ethnic and with cultural identity."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2019, she published her fifth novel, Trust Exercise, which won the National Book Award for Fiction.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2025, Choi published her sixth novel, Flashlight.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In September 2025, Flashlight was selected for the shortlist.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Choi teaches creative writing at the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Awards and grants

• Asian American Literary Award for Fiction for The Foreign Student
• Steven Turner Award for The Foreign Student
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient (2001)
• Guggenheim Fellow (2004).
• PEN/W.G. Sebald Award (2010) for A Person of Interest
• Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction for My Education (2014)<ref name=timespicayune>"Looking for summer reading? Lambda Literary Awards rain down a host of choices". Times-Picayune, June 3, 2014.</ref>
• National Book Award for Fiction for Trust Exercise (2019)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Sunday Times Short Story Award (2021) for Flashlight<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Bibliography

Novels

• The Foreign Student (1998), Template:ISBN
• American Woman (2003), Template:ISBN
• A Person of Interest (2008), Template:ISBN
• My Education (2013), Template:ISBN
• Trust Exercise (2019), Template:ISBN
• Flashlight (2025), Template:ISBN

Children's books

• Camp Tiger (picture book, illustrated by John Rocco) (2019), Template:ISBN

Short fiction

Anthologies (edited)

• Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker (2000), Template:ISBN (ed. with David Remnick)

Stories

Title	Year	First published	Reprinted/collected	Notes
"Flashlight"	2020	Template:Cite magazine
"The Whale Mother"	2020	Template:Cite magazine

Further reading

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• State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, "Indiana" essay.

External links

• Template:Official website
• Excerpt from Susan Choi's fiction in Guernica (guernicamag.com)
• Goldsea.com - interview with Susan Choi (2003)
• New York Public Library Young Lions Award finalist 2004
• link to picture of Susan Choi