“A spectacularly good read...feminism in the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex or Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own : richly complex, densely psychological, dazzlingly nuanced.” — Slate From the internationally bestselling author of The Summer Without Men comes “an electrifying work” ( The Washington Post ) about the lengths one woman will go for artistic recognition amid the deceptive powers of prejudice, money, fame, and desire. After years of having her work ignored or dismissed by critics, artist Harriet Burden decides to conduct an experiment: she presents her own art behind three male masks, concealing her female identity. Yet when the shows succeed and Burden steps forward for her triumphant reveal, she is betrayed by the third man, Rune, who claims the work as his own. After critics side with him, Burden and Rune suddenly find themselves in a charged and dangerous game—one that ends in his bizarre death. An intricately conceived, diabolical puzzle presented as a collection of texts, including Harriet’s journals assembled after her death, this “glorious mashup of storytelling and scholarship” ( San Francisco Chronicle ) unfolds from multiple perspectives as Harriet’s critics, fans, family, and others offer their own conflicting opinions of where the truth lies. LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE "The Blazing World offers a spirited romp...constructed as a Nabokovian cat's cradle....Hustvedt's portrait of the artist as a middle-aged widow is searingly fresh. It's rare to encounter a female protagonist who throws her weight around quite so grandiloquently as Harriet Burden, a heroine who is—well, more like the hero of a Philip Roth or a Saul Bellow novel." ― New York Times Book Review “Ingeniously and energetically put together. . . . The Blazing World never runs out of steam in dispensing ideas and peeling back layers of truth.” ― Chicago Tribune “ The Blazing World is Siri Hustvedt’s best novel yet, an electrifying work with a titanic, poignantly flawed protagonist. Harriet Burden’s rage, turbulence and neediness leap off these pages in a skillfully orchestrated chorus of voices both dark and brilliant.” ― The Washington Post “Incandescent. . . . Hustvedt’s greatest triumph here is not the feminist argument she makes. It’s that we ache for her characters. This is a muscular book, and just enough of that muscle is heart.” ― The Boston Globe “A glorious mashup of storytelling and scholarship. . . .[ The Blazing World ’s] touching conclusion ‘blazes hot and bright’ from the perspective of an aura reader, Harriet's caretaker, whose vision of the artist's work is at once spiritually charged and whimsical.” ― The San Francisco Chronicle "In certain respects, The Blazing World is a didactic novel, presenting arguments about the place of gender in American cultural life, yet it avoids preaching or settled judgments by putting at its center a figure whose strongly held beliefs are undermined by the hazards of real life. The effect is more fluid and nuanced than any scholarly study or political diatribe could be." ― The Wall Street Journal “ The Blazing World is unique and recognizably so, a bracing examination of the act of creation, of fame and identity, gender bias and feminism, love and desire, psychology and philosophy. . . . Full of life and ideas and intellectual prowess, it’s also a compelling story with richly drawn characters. . . .[An] extraordinary puzzle.” ― The Miami Herald "Complex, astonishing, harrowing, and utterly, completely engrossing." ― NPR “This is feminism in the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex , or Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own : richly complex, densely psychological, dazzlingly nuanced. And at the same time, the book is a spectacularly good read. Its storytelling is magnificent, its characters vivid, its plot gripping; it’s rare that a novel of ideas can be so much fun.” ― Slate "Siri Hustvedt has earned her reputation as a brilliant thinker and articulate writer. This is not her first work of fiction, and The Blazing World is strong proof that her talents are unmatched in the genre. . . a delightful, quirky story that shares many truths about women in the arts, and the struggles they encounter in rising to fame." ― Seattle Post-Intelligencer “Dazzling. . . ingeniously constructed. . . . The Blazing World is a serious, sometimes profound book, tackling head-on the knotty issues of identity and sense of self, and our unconscious ideas about gender and celebrity. It offers an exhilarating reading experience for anyone willing to meet its challenge.” ― Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Siri Hustvedt has a rare gift for finding the human heart in what might be cerebral musings and rarefied settings.” ― Columbus Dispatch “Immediately engrossing. . . . None of the narrators, even Harriet, are precisely reliable, and this ingeniously supports Harriet’s own theory that we are all just monster