Olivia Katarina Sudjic (born 1988/1989)^[1] is a British fiction writer whose first book, Sympathy, received positive reviews in the press, from publications such as The New York Times,^[2] The Guardian^[3] and The New Republic.^[4] In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list, compiled every 10 years since 1983, identifying the 20 most significant British novelists aged under 40.^[5]

Background

Sudjic was born in London, England.^[6] She was educated at the City of London School for Girls^[7][8] and then read English Literature at Trinity Hall, Cambridge,^[9] where she won the E.G. Harwood Prize for English.^[10][11]

Selected texts

Sympathy (2017)

Sympathy revolves around a twenty-something woman visiting New York who becomes obsessed with an older woman via the social media app Instagram. The book is recognized for addressing generational differences: "A child of the age of algorithms, she notices everything but knows the value and significance of nothing."^[12] As for the structure, it resembles the disjointed experience of surfing the internet, thereby reinforcing the story's focus on technology.^[3]

The reviews for Sympathy were enthusiastic. The New Republic refers to the novel as "a remarkable debut, and with the arrival of such a novelist we can finally welcome our techno-dystopian future with open arms."^[4] According to The New Republic, Sympathy is "The First Great Instagram Novel", dealing with obsession and smartphone technology.^[13] The article goes on to say: "Rarely do novels so ostentatiously of the moment succeed so well at gesturing to the universal."^[12] The novel was also mentioned in Vanity Fair,^[14] The Financial Times,^[15] The Spectator,^[16] The Telegraph,^[17] Elle,^[18] Esquire,^[19] Star Tribune,^[20] The Times,^[21] The New Yorker^[22] and Vice,^[23] among others.

Sudjic began writing Sympathy in 2014 while staying with her grandmother in Manhattan.^[24][9] New York City ended up becoming integral to the story, representing the protagonist's "...searching and longing for connection."^[25] In the beginning, Sudjic intended to write an historical novel, but changed her mind and set the story in contemporary times.^[9] Sympathy has been described as a feminist work, with Sudjic stating that the internet is male-dominated.^[26][18]

Exposure (2018)

Exposure, a non-fiction work, was published by Peninsula Press, and named a book of the year for 2018 by the Irish Times, Evening Standard and White Review.^[27][28]

Asylum Road (2021)

Sudjic's third novel Asylum Road was published in 2021 by Bloomsbury.^[29] The narrator Anya is from Sarajevo, and survived the siege of that city. The novel is about her disintegration.^[30] The title refers to the street in Peckham on which an asylum was located.^[31]

Asylum Road was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's 2022 Encore Award^[32] and the Society of Authors' 2022 Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize.^[33]