Brooklyn Bookbeat: Worldly writer Nell Freudenberger calls Brooklyn home
Acclaimed author Nell Freudenberger is a Brooklynite, living with her family in Park Slope, but she is certainly no stranger to territories abroad. Before moving to Brooklyn, she lived in Bangkok and spent much time traveling in China and India, and her books are compelling evidence of her extensive cross-cultural experiences.
At 22, the young Harvard graduate turned down a job at Random House and moved to Bangkok to teach English, after which she traveled throughout India. Freudenberger’s first book – published in 2003 when she was just 28 years old – is a collection of five stories titled “Lucky Girls,” largely inspired by her encounters as an American abroad.
Three years later, Freudenberger published her first novel, “The Dissident,” which also follows a character who lives outside of her own cultural norms. This time, though, the perspective is reversed: rather than recreating the American experience abroad, Freudenberger portrays a Chinese woman’s encounters living in L.A.