Rafael Frumkin | Humanities and Social Sciences | SIU

Rafael Frumkin is the author of two novels: Confidence (2023), which was a New York Times Editor’s Pick and one of the Washington Post’s 50 Best Books of 2023, and The Comedown (2018), which is being adapted for TV at Sony Trident. His collection of short stories, Bugsy and Other Stories, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2024.

His fiction, essays, journalism, and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, Granta, Guernica, Hazlitt, VQR, The Cut, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency, among others. His research interests include philosophy in fiction (especially speculative fiction's exploration of gender-based biopolitics and posthumanism), second- and third-wave feminist theory, adapting stories among mediums, scammers and cults in the U.S. and abroad, memoir and autofiction, and the surprising commonalities between prosperity gospel capitalism and leftist individualism.

Professor Frumkin's classes on offer include: The New Gonzo Journalism, Novel of Ideas, Fiction and Adaptation, and Writing What You Know, among others.