Ling Ma, author of the critically acclaimed (and now eerily resonant) zombie pandemic novel “Severance,” has won the 2020 Whiting Award for fiction. The award recognizes 10 emerging writers each year with the $50,000 prize.
The judges, who remain anonymous even to winners, wrote in Ma’s citation: “Ma’s stunning intelligence and imagination inflect every page, but it’s the carefully wrought moments of heartbreak mixed with flickers of joy that linger the longest.”
We chatted with Ma, who teaches writing at the University of Chicago, via email about the award and a recent spike in interest in her book. Here’s an edited transcript.
Q: The Whiting Awards are presented to authors early in their careers who show great promise. What does it mean to you to receive this?
A: I feel super lucky and honored to have been selected for a Whiting Award. There’s no application process, so the news came out of the blue. It felt even more fortuitous upon learning of the other recipients, including Jaquira Díaz and Jia Tolentino, amazing writers who also lent support when “Severance” was first published, and who I met during book tour. It would’ve been nice to see everyone in person, but there won’t be a ceremony for obvious reasons.
Q: Your novel, “Severance” — which is the work the Whiting Foundation evaluated in determining your award — has particular resonance now, given the global coronavirus pandemic. In reading back over the Tribune’s earlier coverage of the book, this sentence jumped out at me: “Less obvious is how fresh ‘Severance’ reads, how thoroughly Ma, without anticipating it, remade the inevitable zombie apocalypse into a recognizable picture of late capitalism and lonesomeness.” How does it feel to be living through a moment that in some ways parallels what you wrote?
A: Well, there are no zombies …. It depends on what you mean by the parallels.
Much of what inspired “Severance” were catastrophes of the recent past: Hurricane Sandy, the SARS virus, the Ebola outbreak, multiple cases of blackouts in New York, including one caused by Hurricane Ernesto, etc. I experienced some of these events firsthand as I was writing the novel — including the 2011 Snowpocalypse of Chicago, when the buses and other vehicles were trapped overnight on Lake Shore Drive by the extreme snowfall. There was no way to get to work the next day. I was thinking about how companies respond to catastrophe, and the way that work culture calibrates around it. When I first started writing “Severance,” I saw it primarily as work novel, with the global supply chain as the setting.
People have told me that the novel seems prescient of what’s happening now. In terms of the writing process, I thought that I was reflecting the then-present, what was happening around me at the time. I wrote the first draft between 2012 to 2016. Even though the book is marketed as satire, I really thought, for much of it, that I was reflecting things as they were. I didn’t think I was exaggerating that much.
Q: I know you’re reticent to discuss the pandemic and its relationship to your book. Why?
A: “Severance” came out in 2018. I did some press for it back then, and I thought I was done for awhile. Then the pandemic-related media requests began to come in starting in January, coinciding with increased coverage around COVID-19.
The first media request I can remember was on the day they announced that a second U.S. patient of the virus had been found in Chicago. My initial thought was that I didn’t want to conflate book promotion with what looked like a global health crisis. It just seemed asinine to insert the book into that conversation. So I turned that request down, along with others that followed. As the requests increased in the following months, however, I realized the interest was not just a passing blip.
I’ve been watching the events unfold like everyone else. Maybe one day I’ll speak more fully about it, if I have anything insightful to say. There have been some think pieces discussing the parallels between “Severance” and our current situation, and the authors seem more thoughtful about this topic.
Q: How has your writing evolved since you wrote “Severance”?
A: I’m not sure. I don’t exactly have a huge body of work that I can look back on and compare. “Severance” already feels like it was written by a former self. But in general, trying to analyze my own fiction in a critical capacity is like trying to study the sun by staring directly at it.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have no idea. The work reveals itself the longer time I spend with it, and my idea of what it is changes. The Whiting Award makes life easier by giving us more options, including more time.
Q: What books are you reading now?
A: Nonfiction has been speaking to me more lately. I’ve been reading Cathy Park Hong’s essay collection “Minor Feelings,” which powerfully tapped into some unarticulated feelings I’ve had about growing up Asian American, particularly in more white-dominant places like Utah and Kansas.
For fiction, I have been reading upcoming releases. I really enjoyed Sanae Lemoine’s “The Margot Affair,” which is lovely and sensuous, with these cloudbursts of longing. Oh, and Raven Leilani’s “Luster” is so show-stoppingly energetic that I literally lost my breath. Last but not least, I’m starting my colleague Stephanie Soileau’s fantastic story collection “Last One Out Shut Off the Lights.” These are all coming out this summer, so something to look forward to.
Q: What books would you recommend to others — particularly as so many people are home right now?
A: Since we’re online so much more as we work from home, I’d recommend Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not a Gadget.” It’s still super relevant in its insights about streaming economy, hive mind, and social media.
Not having taken public transit in weeks, I’ve looked forward to my daily, socially distanced walks, even if it’s just around the neighborhood. Rebecca Solnit’s cultural essays on walking, “Wanderlust,” is one of my favorite essay collections.
There are still local bookstores that will ship, like Unabridged and Pilsen Community. And I just learned about this just-launched book-buying site Bookshop.org, which will hopefully be the Amazon antidote we all deserve.
Jennifer Day is the Tribune’s books editor.