The Modern Novel

Biography

Chloe Aridjis was born in New York City in 1971 to a Mexican father and an American mother. Her father is the writer Homero Aridjis. She grew up in Mexico City and the Netherlands, where her father served as Mexico’s ambassador. She studied comparative literature at Harvard and then wrote a thesis on Baudelaire at the University of Oxford, finally getting a doctorate in a study based on the interface between high and popular art in nineteenth-century France with a special focus on the relationship between poetry, magic shows and literature of the fantastic, inspired by reading the autobiographies of two magicians. Her first novel was published in 2009 and she has since published two other well-received novels. She has also published a translation of her father’s book The Child Poet.

Other links

Chloe Aridjis
Chloe Aridjis
Chloe Aridjis on men who gape at women (profile)
Interview
Interview
Interview
Interview
Interview
Interview
Interview
Book of a lifetime: Le Spleen de Paris, By Charles Baudelaire (article by Aridjis)
Ideal Syllabus (Aridjis lists the books that have influenced her)