Ling Ma

Chinese American novelist and academic

Ling Ma

Ma in 2024

Born|

Sanming, Fujian, China

Occupation(s)| Writer, professor
Known for| Severance
Awards| Kirkus Prize; Windham-Campbell Literature Prize; Story Prize
Academic background
Education| University of Chicago (AB)
Cornell University (MFA)
Academic work
Institutions| University of Chicago

Ling Ma is a Chinese American novelist and professor at the University of Chicago. Her first book, Severance (2018), won a 2018 Kirkus Prize and was listed as a New York Times Notable Book of 2018[1] and shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award.[2] Her second book, Bliss Montage (2022), won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and The Story Prize.[3][4] She is a 2024 MacArthur Fellow.[5]

## Early life

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Ma was born in Sanming, Fujian, China,[6] initially an only child because of China's "one-child policy."[7] She grew up in Utah, Nebraska, and Kansas.[8] She has an AB from the University of Chicago and received an MFA from Cornell University.[9]

## Career

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Ma's debut novel, Severance, is described as "a biting indictment of late-stage capitalism and a chilling vision of what comes after, but that doesn’t mean it’s a Marxist screed or a dry Hobbesian thought experiment."[10] Severance is a novel that is partially post-apocalyptic horror, and partially office satire.[11] It follows the novel's narrator in the aftermath of the outbreak of a deadly fever that has killed almost everyone in the US.[12] An earlier chapter from the book won a 2015 Disquiet Literary Prize, the Graywolf Prize.[13]

Ma began the novel while working as a fact checker for Playboy, a job she held from 2009 to 2012.[14] It began as a short story, written in her office during her last few months there; after her layoff, it became a novel which she wrote while living on severance pay.[15] She took four years to write it,[11] and finished the novel at Cornell as part of the work in her MFA program.[16] Ma said she "felt pressured to write a traditional immigration novel" while in the MFA program at Cornell, but instead decided to write about otherness and alienation via the trope of zombie apocalypse.[8]

Ma has also published short stories in Granta, Playboy, and the Chicago Reader.[17] Ma's short story "Peking Duck" appears in the 2022 The New Yorker Fiction Issue.[18] Her first collection of short stories, Bliss Montage, was published in September 2022.[19] The collection won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction.[20]

She is the recipient of a 2023 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Fiction.[21]

## Works

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### Books

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* Ma, Ling (2018). Severance: A Novel. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374261597.
* Ma, Ling (2022). Bliss Montage. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374293512.

### Stories

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Year  | Title | Publication | Collected in

|
|
|

2012  | "The Scientist" | "The Scientist". Ninth Letter. 17. Spring–Summer 2012. | —
"Yeti Lovemaking" | "Yeti Lovemaking". Unstuck. 2. 2012. | Bliss Montage
2014  | "Fuzhou Nighttime Feeling" | "Fuzhou Nighttime Feeling". The Texas Observer. October 2014. | from Severance
2015  | "Los Angeles" | "Los Angeles". Granta (132). Summer 2015. | Bliss Montage
2020  | "G" | "G". Zoetrope: All-Story. 24 (1). Spring 2020.
2022  | "Office Hours" | "Office Hours". The Atlantic. May 16, 2022.
"Tomorrow" | "Tomorrow". Virginia Quarterly Review. 98 (3). Summer 2022.
"Peking Duck" | "Peking Duck". The New Yorker. July 11, 2022.
"Oranges" | —
"Returning"  | —
2023  | "Winner" | "Winner". The Yale Review. 111 (4). Winter 2023. | —

## References

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1. ^ "2018 Finalists". Kirkus Reviews. 2016-11-11. Archived from the original on 2019-01-10. Retrieved 2019-01-22.
2. ^ "Announcing the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards Finalists". PEN America. 2019-01-15. Archived from the original on 2019-10-30. Retrieved 2019-02-23.
3. ^ "Here Are This Year's Finalists for the Story Prize". LitHub. January 10, 2023. Archived from the original on April 5, 2024. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
4. ^ "Ling Ma's 'Bliss Montage' wins $20,000 Story Prize". ABC News. March 15, 2023. Archived from the original on March 21, 2023. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
5. ^ Blair, Elizabeth (1 October 2024). "Here's who made the 2024 MacArthur Fellows list". NPR. Retrieved 1 October 2024.
6. ^ Ma, Ling. "Bio". Tumblr. Archived from the original on 2018-12-18. Retrieved 2019-01-23.
7. ^ Shapiro, Ari (2018-08-10). "In Satirical 'Severance,' A Stricken Country Works Itself To Death". NPR.org. Archived from the original on 2019-01-16. Retrieved 2019-01-23.
8. ^ a b Borrelli, Christopher (2019-01-15). "Chicago author Ling Ma never thought she'd write a zombie apocalypse novel. Here's what changed her mind". chicagotribune.com. Archived from the original on 2019-01-22. Retrieved 2019-01-23.
9. ^ "People: Ling Ma". University of Chicago, Division of the Humanities. Archived from the original on 2022-09-10. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
10. ^ SEVERANCE by Ling Ma | Kirkus Reviews. Archived from the original on 2023-04-05. Retrieved 2019-06-29.
11. ^ a b Schaub, Michael (24 August 2018). "'Office politics is, to some degree, horrifying' - Ling Ma on her horror-satire 'Severance'". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2019-07-15. Retrieved 2019-07-15.
12. ^ "'Severance' Is the Apocalyptic Millennial New York Immigrant Story You Didn't Know You Needed". Electric Literature. 2018-08-14. Archived from the original on 2019-07-15. Retrieved 2019-07-15.
13. ^ "Finalist winners 2015". Disquiet International. Archived from the original on 2019-01-23. Retrieved 2019-01-22.
14. ^ Ma, Ling (2018-08-10). "Crying At The Playboy Office". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on 2019-01-23. Retrieved 2019-01-23.
15. ^ Fan, Jiayang (December 10, 2018). "Ling Ma's "Severance" Captures the Bleak, Fatalistic Mood of 2018". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 2019-01-23. Retrieved 2019-01-23.
16. ^ Morgan, Adam (2018-08-14). "In 'Severance,' Ling Ma Destroys New York City". Chicago Review of Books. Archived from the original on 2019-01-23. Retrieved 2019-01-23.
17. ^ Day, Madeline (2018-08-22). "Apocalyptic Office Novel: An Interview with Ling Ma Archived 2019-01-23 at the Wayback Machine". The Paris Review. Retrieved 2019-01-23.
18. ^ ""Peking Duck"". The New Yorker. 2022-06-29. Archived from the original on 2022-07-20. Retrieved 2022-07-20.
19. ^ Leyshon, Cressida (July 4, 2022). "Ling Ma on Writers and Their Parents". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 2022-07-20. Retrieved 2022-07-18.
20. ^ Varno, David (2023-02-01). "NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE ANNOUNCES FINALISTS FOR PUBLISHING YEAR 2022 - National Book Critics Circle". National Book Critics Circle. Archived from the original on 2023-04-27. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
21. ^ "2023 Prize Recipients". Windham Campbell Prizes 2023. Windham Campbell Prizes. Archived from the original on April 21, 2023. Retrieved April 21, 2023.

## External links

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Wikiquote has quotations related to Ling Ma.

* Personal website

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