A short life of the author
Eula Biss (b. 1977) was born in the United States. She studied at Hampshire College and the University of Iowa. She teaches at Northwestern University.
Life and Career
Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays (2009) — about race, place, and identity in America — won the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and established her as a distinctive essayist. The title essay, about race and her experience of moving to a Black neighbourhood, is one of the finest American essays of the twenty-first century.
On Immunity: An Inoculation (2014) — written after the birth of her son, during the H1N1 flu outbreak — is a book about vaccination that is also about metaphor, fear, community, capitalism, and the obligations we owe each other. It became essential reading during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Having and Being Had (2020) — a fragmentary essay about capitalism, consumption, and property — extends her project of bringing intellectual rigour to the texture of everyday life.
Major Works and Themes
Biss writes about fear, community, privilege, and the relationship between personal experience and systemic forces. Her essays are formally inventive and intellectually serious.
Key Works
- On Immunity (2014)
- Having and Being Had (2020)
Collecting Biss
First editions (Graywolf Press, 2009 and 2014) bring $15–$30.