One of the most commanding, entertaining critics of contemporary culture, Roxane Gay is never one to shy away from tough topics. The 41-year-old writer and Purdue University associate professor tackled rape in her 2014 novel An Untamed State, race and gender in the essay collection Bad Feminist that same year, and since being named a contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times in March has weighed in on everything from Sandra Bland’s death at the hands of police to the bizarre reality-TV mating ritual of The Bachelorette. In anticipation of her Chicago Humanities Festival talk on Friday with “one of my favorite writers,” fellow Chicagoan Lindsay Hunter, Gay talked over the phone about becoming a feminist voice, her forthcoming book on obesity, and the fiction projects she’s juggling.
I don’t know if I can change the conversation; I’m just one woman, but I can definitely be a part of that conversation. I definitely use my voice and say we need to be thinking about women’s rights and our right to bodily autonomy, and we need to be doing more to preserve those rights. We need to care about what’s going on.
That’s such an important story to tell in a world full of magazine covers touting unrealistic weight-loss victories.
Do you plan to write more fiction?
I just finished A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, and I loved it, I thought it was amazing. Right now I’m reading Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles. It’s a totally different book, but it’s really interesting and she’s an amazing, fierce writer, and you just never know what’s going to happen. v
