JC
Jeanine Cummins
50quotes
Jeanine Cummins
Full Name and Common Aliases
Jeanine Cummins is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated American novelist, best known for her critically acclaimed novel _American Dirt_.
Birth and Death Dates
Born on December 18, 1978, in New York City.
Nationality and Profession(s)
Cummins holds dual citizenship of the United States and Ireland. She is a novelist, essayist, and professor.
Early Life and Background
Growing up in a middle-class family in Pennsylvania, Cummins developed a strong interest in literature from an early age. Her parents, both educators, encouraged her love for reading and writing. After graduating from high school, she moved to New York City to pursue a career in writing.
Major Accomplishments
Cummins's breakthrough novel, _American Dirt_, was published in 2020 to widespread critical acclaim. The book tells the story of a Mexican mother and her son fleeing violence in their hometown for the United States. The novel explores themes of migration, identity, and the complexities of the US-Mexico border.
Notable Works or Actions
Cummins has also written several essays and articles on topics such as immigration, identity, and social justice. Her writing often reflects her experiences growing up with a mixed cultural background and her interests in human rights.
Impact and Legacy
_American Dirt_ was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2020, cementing Cummins's status as one of the most exciting new voices in American literature. The novel has also sparked important conversations about immigration policy, border control, and the treatment of migrants in the United States.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
Jeanine Cummins is widely quoted for her thought-provoking insights into the complexities of identity, culture, and social justice. Her writing often challenges readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the world around them. As a novelist, essayist, and professor, she continues to inspire new generations of writers and thinkers with her unique perspective and powerful storytelling.
Throughout her career, Cummins has demonstrated a remarkable ability to craft stories that are both deeply personal and universally relatable. Her writing often explores themes of identity, belonging, and the search for home – whether that's in the United States or Mexico, or somewhere in between.
As a prominent voice in contemporary American literature, Cummins continues to push boundaries and challenge readers to think more critically about the world around them. Her work serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of empathy, understanding, and human connection in our increasingly complex global society.
Quotes by Jeanine Cummins
"
Her hatred is a living succubus, vast enough and quick enough and wicked enough to crest up from her heart and take wing, to expand across the hundreds of miles between them, to engulf the whole city of Acapulco, to veil the room in which he’s standing, to overshadow him and overcome him, to slip into his mouth and choke him from the inside out. She hates him so much she can murder him from sixteen hundred miles away, just by wishing for it.
"
When she thinks of this, she feels as tatty as a scrap of lace, defined not so much by what she’s made of, but more by the shapes of what’s missing.
"
Lydia is constantly reminded that her education has no purchase here, that she has no access to the kind of information that has real currency on this journey. Among migrants, everyone knows more than she does. How do you find a coyote, make sure he’s reputable, pay for your crossing, all without getting ripped off?
"
She’d hoped, like one of those desert rattlesnakes, to shed the skin of her anguish and leave it behind her in the Mexican dirt.
"
Lydia’s English is a help, but there are many different languages in el norte. There are codes Lydia hasn’t yet learned to decipher, subtle differences between words that mean almost, but not quite the same thing: migrant, immigrant, illegal alien. She learns that there are flags that people use here, and those flags may be a warning or a welcome. She is learning.
"
Many of them look Luca and Mami right in the eye, and say, “God bless you,” and they smile. Luca would like to smile back, but he feels peculiar, too. He is unaccustomed to pity.
"
She sticks her hand through the fence and wiggles her fingers on the other side. Her fingers are in el norte. She spits through the fence. Only to leave a piece of herself there on American dirt.
"
Despite everything, he likes being alive. Lydia doesn’t know whether that’s true for herself. For mothers, the question is immaterial anyway. Her survival is a matter of instinct rather than desire.
Showing 1 to 10 of 50 results