Carmen Maria Machado Books In Order

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Carmen Maria Machado is a reputed essayist, author, critic, and short story writer from America, who likes to write fantasy, horror, and science fiction stories. She has penned several widely acclaimed books and short story collections in her career. Machado’s works are frequently published in Granta, The New Yorker, Lightspeed Magazine, and a few other publications. Her stories have been nominated for the Nebula and National Book awards and have been reprinted in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, The New Voices of Fantasy, Best Weird Fiction of the Year, Best WOmen’s Erotica, etc. Author Machado was born and brought up in Allentown, a town located to the north of Philadelphia at an hour’s distance. Her dad was the son of immigrants, whose own father had moved in from Cuba when he was 18 years old. The grandfather of Machado worked in the Patent Office of the US and met his future life partner when she moved to the United States from Austria following the Second World War.

Author Machado studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and obtained her MFA. She has earned residences and fellowships from the Iowa University, Elizabeth George Foundation, Michener Copernicus Foundation, CINTAS Foundation, Hedgebrook, Yaddo Corporation, Speculative Literature Foundation, etc. Machado also enrolled herself for the Clarion Workshop, where she trained under the guidance of authors like Ted Chiang. She says that her writing has been inspired and influenced by the works of authors such as Angela Carter, Yoko Ogawa, Shirley Jackson, Kelly Link, Ray Bradbury, Helen Oyeyemi, etc. Machado also says that she has been particularly influenced by One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which was gifted to her by her English teacher when she was in high school. In addition to writing stories and essays, Machado is also well known for her criticisms, which have appeared in magazines such as Gulf Coast, Guernica, Granta, The Paris Review, LA Review of Books, Tin House, Strange Horizon, etc. A number of critics have labeled Machado’s fiction as seductive and strange. Many others have also described her work as not just having form, but taking form in their own sense.

The fiction novels of Machado have been finalists for Shirley Jackson Award, Nebula Award, Franz Kafka Award, Calvino Prize, etc., in different categories. Machado’s story collection, Her body & Other Parties, won the John Leonard Prize and was also nominated for a National Book Award. The FX production company has entered a contract with author Machado to adapt this story collection into a TV series. The development work has already begun by Gina Welch. Machado has recently opened up about her lesbian sexual orientation. She resides in Philadelphia along with her wife and is a Writer-in-Residence at the Pennsylvania University. Currently, Machado is busy writing her upcoming books and short stories. She likes to keep herself busy with reading the work of other writers, so that she can review them as a prominent critic. Machado is grateful to her fans for being supportive throughout her career and expects them to love and support her future projects as well.

A popular book written by author Carmen Maria Machado is entitled ‘The Husband Stitch’. It was released by Granta.com in 2014. This book describes the different ways in which women get wronged and get used to it. Generally, people don’t tend to notice that they are wronged and only those people realize it who have feminist views. Machado has woven the story based on the idea that women always give and don’t get in return what they deserve. The narrator has tried to describe how society helps to spread sexual perversion. The story revolves around a woman, who falls in love with a handsome guy. She marries her and with the hope of giving a new beginning to her life. Soon after the marriage, the woman starts doing everything to please her husband. She does things that he likes so as to keep him happy all the time. Later, she becomes pregnant and complications arise at the time of delivery.

With great difficulty, the woman gives birth, after which the doctor performs minor surgery on her. The husband sniggers with the doctor for the surgical stitch and starts hating his wife. After some time, he leaves her alone. Overall, this story is marvelous, intoxicating, and very well written. There are a lot of sexually explicit scenes in the book that the writer has justified saying that they reflect what actually happens in society and in a marriage. The readers found the idea behind this story quite interesting. They also appreciated the feminist elements mentioned by the writer. Many critics believe that this story is well-thought, well-written, and hard-hitting. It is subtly disturbing in describing how men tend to become thoughtlessly manipulative as well as dismissive of the feelings of women. The book touched the hearts of many readers across the globe and eventually became successful.

Another well-known story written by Machado is called ‘Her body and Other Parties’. It was published in 2017 by the Graywolf Press. In this particular book, Machado has demolished the arbitrary border between science fiction and psychological realism, fabulism and fantasy, and horror and comedy. Her work in this novel has earned her comparisons to Kelly Link and Karen Russell and has also given her a voice of her own. Machado has tried to bend genre to develop a startling narrative that maps the realities of the lives of women and the violence they face in their day to day lives. One woman refuses the entreaties of her husband and removes her neck’s green ribbon. Another woman suffers from a life-threatening plague and remembers her sexual encounters. And by giving examples of other such women, Machado has tried to horrific violence inflicted on women. The story entertained a large number of the audience throughout the world and made them think about the hardships faced by female gender in the male-dominated society. All the elements depicted by Machado in this story vibrate with queerness, originality, sensuality, voracious imagination, an extraordinary voice. Just like her previous works, this story also stands out and showcases her unique style of writing and the sense of understanding of women’s pains.