Nationality American Name Alma Katsu | Role Writer | |
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Born Alma Katsu
November 29, 1959 (age 64)
Fairbanks, Alaska, US ( 1959-11-29 ) Occupation Author, novelist, writer Genre Paranormal Romance, Historical Fiction, Gothic Fiction, Dark Fantasy Notable works The Taker, The Reckoning, The Descent Nominations Goodreads Choice Awards Best Paranormal Fantasy Books The Descent: Book Thr, The Taker, The Devil's Scribe, The Descent, The Reckoning | ||
Episode 334 | Alma Katsu Interview
Alma Katsu (born 1959) is an American writer of adult fiction. Her best-known work is The Taker, a literary novel with historical and fantasy elements that was published in 2011 and recognized as one of the ten best debut novels of the year by the American Library Association. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Spain and Italy.
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She has also had a 29-year career in the US federal government working in a number of positions dealing with intelligence and foreign policy, with an emphasis on technology issues. Since 2012 she has worked as a senior policy analyst for the RAND Corporation.
Biography
Katsu was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, the daughter of an American-born father and a Japanese-born mother. She spent the majority of her youth living near Concord, Massachusetts, to which she attributes her interest in the early American history featured in her novels. She attended Brandeis University (BA in literature and writing, 1981) where she studied with novelist John Irving and children’s book author Margaret Rey, and the Johns Hopkins University (MA in Fiction, 2004). She is also an alumnus of the Squaw Valley writers workshops.
Career
Katsu’s novels are generally cited for the quality of the prose and the ability to portrait a supernatural setting in an immediate and realistic way (“makes the supernatural seem possible” – Publishers Weekly and "renews a genre... tragedy without..the hyperbole of high romance"—Locus Magazine). The first novel in the trilogy, The Taker, is set primarily in the past but has a present-day narrative as a frame,
Viewed as another literary take on the Faustian bargain and a model of setting stories-within-stories, The Taker Trilogy tells the story of a young woman who has been given eternal life but comes to see this condition as a punishment for evil acts she perpetrated in life and is now condemned to revisit until the end of time.
Personal life
She lives in the Washington, DC area with her husband musician Bruce Katsu.
Awards
The Taker was named one of the ten best debut novels of 2011 by Booklist magazine, the publication of the American Library Association. The second novel, The Reckoning, was nominated for several year-end awards including Goodreads Readers Choice Award for best paranormal fantasy and RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Award for best paranormal romance.