Kathy Acker
Kathy Acker | |
|---|---|
Acker in 1996 | |
| Born | Karen Lehman April 18, 1947 (disputed) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | November 30, 1997 (aged 50) Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico |
| Occupation |
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| Citizenship | United States |
| Subject | Sexual politics, sexual taboo, sexual desire, queer and female fantasy, power dynamics, fragmented identity, childhood trauma, death and disease, violence and abuse, adolescent rebellion, pornography, literary plagiarism, language as resistance and inadequacy |
| Literary movement | |
| Notable works | Blood and Guts in High School (novel) Great Expectations New York (short story) |
| Notable awards | Pushcart Prize (1979) |
| Spouse | Robert Acker (1966–19??) Peter Gordon (1976; annulled) |
Kathy Acker (April 18, 1947 [disputed] – November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, critic, performance artist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with complex themes such as childhood trauma, sexuality, language, identity, and rebellion. Her writing incorporates pastiche and the cut-up technique, involving cutting-up and scrambling passages and sentences; she also defined her writing as existing in the post-nouveau roman European tradition. In her texts, she combines biographical elements, power, sex and violence.