Ruth Ozeki

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Ruth Ozeki, an American-Canadian writer, photographer, and Zen Buddhist priest.

My Year of Meats (1998), All Over Creation (2003), and A Tale for the Time Being (2013) attempt to incorporate personal narrative and social concerns with topics relating to science, technology, environmental politics, race, nationalism, and global popular culture.

Her books have been translated into more than 30 languages.

She teaches creative writing at Smith College, where she is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities in the Department of English Language and Literature.

Early life and education

Ozeki was born on March 12, 1956. She grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, and she is the niece of American linguist, anthropologist, and Mayanist scholar Floyd Lounsbury, as well as linguist Masako Yokoyama. She graduated from Smith College with a B.A. in 1980. She earned a Japanese Ministry of Education Fellowship (Monbukagakusho) to do graduate studies at Nara University, with a focus on Asian Studies and English, and Asian Studies at the university.

Personal life

Ozeki divides her time between Northampton, Massachusetts; New York, New York; and Cortes Island, British Columbia. She is married to German-Canadian environmental artist Oliver Kellhammer, who teaches on the faculty of Sustainable Systems at Parsons School of Design in New York City.

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Career

Ozeki's 1983 release of Mutant Hunt (1987) and Robot Holocaust (1986). In 1988, she began working for Telecom Staff, a Japanese production company, assisting in the development of and directing documentary-style programs for Japanese television. During this period, she produced episodes of See the World by Train and co-produced the pilot for the TV drama miniseries Fishing With John (1991), starring actor John Lurie and director Jim Jarmusch. Body of Correspondence (1994), Ozeki's first film made in collaboration with artist Marina Zurkow, received the New Visions Award at the San Francisco Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS. Halving the Bones (1995), Ozeki's second film, chronicles her grandmother's life as she brings her grandmother's remains home from Japan. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and it was also shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Montreal World Film Festival, and the Margaret Mead Film Festival, among other venues.

My Year of Meats (Viking Penguin, 1998), based on her work in Japanese television, tells the tale of two women whose lives are linked by a television cooking series in Ozeki. The 1998 Imus/Barnes & Noble American Book Award was given to Meats in my Year of Meats. All Over Creation, Viking Penguin, 2003, focuses on a potato-farming family in Idaho and an environmental activist group protesting the use of GMOs. All Over Creation is Michael Pollan's "a smart and convincing book about a world we don't know we live in." The Before Columbus Foundation gave All Over Creation the 2003 WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction and the 2004 American Book Award.

A Tale for the Time Being (Viking Penguin) by Ozeki in 2013 tells the tale of a cryptic diary written by a teenage schoolgirl in Tokyo who washed ashore on the Pacific Northwest coast of Canada in the aftermath of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Ruth, a novelist who becomes obsessed with finding the girl's fate, finds the diary. "Understandably best" by Junot Diaz in this book -- bewitching, insightful, amusing, and sad — are often on the same page." The novel was named first recipient of the 2015 Yasna Polyana Literary Award (founded by the Leo Tolstoy Museum & Estate and Samsung Electronics) for the Best Foreign Novel of the 21st century in the United States. Several other national and international awards have been given to the book, and it has been distributed in more than thirty countries.

Ozeki's first book of personal nonfiction, The Face: A Time Code (Restless Books, 2016), discusses a three-hour observation experiment in which she examined her reflection in a mirror and kept a log of thoughts that arose during this period. The Face: A Time Code was released as part of Restless Books' groundbreaking collection, The Face, which features authors Tash Aw and Chris Abani.

Ozeki's fourth book, The Book of Form and Emptiness, was released in 2021. In June 2022, a 14-year-old boy who starts to hear voices from inside the house following his dad's death received the Women's Prize for Fiction.

Ozeki studied in Kyoto's English department from 1982 to 1985, and established an English language school in Kyoto, Japan. She is currently the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities in Smith College's Department of English Language and Literature.

Ozeki was ordained as a Soto Zen Buddhist priest in 2010; she practices Zen Buddhism with Zoketsu Norman Fischer. Everyday Zen is the editor.

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Awards and honors (selected)

• 2022: Women's Prize for Fiction winner for The Book of Form and Emptiness.
• 2015: Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award for Foreign Literature, from The Leo Tolstoy Museum and Estate, for A Tale for the Time Being. Ozeki was the first international recipient of this award.
• 2015: International IMPAC Dublin Award (Fiction) longlist for A Tale for the Time Being
• 2014: Dos Passos Prize for A Tale for the Time Being
• 2014: National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction) shortlist for A Tale for the Time Being
• 2014: Medici Book Club Prize for A Tale for the Time Being
• 2014: Canada-Japan Literary Award for A Tale for the Time Being
• 2014: The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic for A Tale for the Time Being
• 2013: Man Booker Prize shortlist for A Tale for the Time Being. Ozeki was the first practicing Zen Buddhist priest to be shortlisted for the Man Booker.
• 2013: Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Fiction) winner for A Tale for the Time Being
• 2013: Kitschies Red Tentacle Prize (UK) for A Tale for the Time Being
• 2004: American Book Award for All Over Creation
• 2003: WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction for All Over Creation
• 1998: Kiriyama Prize for My Year of Meats
• 1998: Imus/Barnes & Noble American Book Award for My Year of Meats
• 1994: International Documentary Association's Distinguished Achievement Award for Halving the Bones
• 1994: Kodak Award for Creative Use of Cinematography for Halving the Bones
• 1994: San Francisco Film & Video Festival, New Visions Award for Body of Correspondence