Olivia Laing

Olivia Laing is a British writer and critic born in 1977, known for nonfiction that blends cultural history, biography, and personal essay. She studied English and Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. Her books include To the River (2011), a walk along the Ouse; The Trip to Echo Spring (2013), about alcoholism and writing; The Lonely City (2016), about loneliness and urban art; and Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency (2020). Crudo (2018), her debut novel, was written in real time during the summer of 2017 — the period of Laing's own marriage — narrated by a character called Kathy who is both Laing and the writer Kathy Acker. It won the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction in 2018. Her second novel, Everybody (2021), is an expansive meditation on the body in history, politics, and art, centred on the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. Laing is a contributing editor to Frieze and has written widely for The Guardian, New Statesman, and other publications. Her criticism is distinguished by its ability to connect the aesthetic and the political through close attention to objects, artworks, and lives.