Nina Siegal is an author and journalist from New York who lives in Europe. She has been a regular freelance contributor to The New York Times from Amsterdam since 2012. She covers art and culture, history and society.
Nina has published three novels and is currently working on a nonfiction book, THE DIARY KEEPERS, forthcoming in 2023 from ECCO/HarperCollins. She is a 2021 recipient of the Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant, and a Humanity in Action Fellow.
Siegal is currently completing her doctorate at the University of Amsterdam in the research school for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture. She received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and her BA in English Literature from Cornell University.
Nina is the author three novels. YOU'LL THANK ME FOR THIS (Mulholland, Little, Brown, 2021), THE ANATOMY LESSON (Nan A. Talese/Knopf Doubleday, 2014) and A LITTLE TROUBLE WITH THE FACTS (HarperCollins, 2008). She has received numerous grants and fellowships including a Fulbright Fellowship in Creative Writing, two MacDowell Colony fellowships, and the post-graduate Jack Leggett Fellowship from Iowa.
In addition to The New York Times, her freelance writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines, including the Wall Street Journal, W. Magazine, Art in America, 1stDibs.com, ArtNews, and The Economist.
"A literary page-turner that captures a story behind a masterpiece. [Siegal's] talent is in exploring the wrenching emotion of loss and the price that's paid for trying to understand human life."
– Oprah Book of the Week, Editor's Pick
"Siegal succeeds in the task she has set for herself – to transmute her material into a work of art."
–The New Yorker
"Siegal’s fascinating narrative conveys the pomp, graft, bustle and rough justice of 17th-century Holland through a multitude of voices."
– The New York Times Book Review
"Siegal sets her splendid, gory second novel in 1632 in Amsterdam, where a thief's execution occasions a celebration, evoking "bloodlust" throughout the city on "Justice Day." ...Through masterful use of subtle details, embroidered into beautiful writing, Siegal suggests that art and violence often intertwine." Publishers Weekly
"Virtually every sentence is drenched in the atmosphere of 17th-century Amsterdam. We feel as if we are walking at Rembrandt’s side, in a cell awaiting the execution of a thief, rushing through the streets with the condemned’s lover in hopes of saving him. This is a novel to be absorbed for its rich evocation of a single day when one man died and another rose to fame for his art... Brilliant." Historical Novel Society, Editor's Choice
"Siegal takes one fascinating work of art and transmutes it into another." Abigail Dalton, "If You Loved The Goldfinch: The Anatomy Lesson," on Everyday E Book.
"A thought-provoking and richly populated novel by a talented new voice." Jeanette Zwart, Shelf Awareness
"Once in a rare while, you get to read a story of such breathtaking beauty and intelligence that you remember why you love to read. The Anatomy Lesson is just such a novel. In stunning prose, Nina Siegal animates Rembrandt’s first masterpiece, spinning a deeply affecting tale of love, loss and redemption as she reveals the secrets of the human soul. It is a gorgeous literary page turner of immense sympathy and elegance, equal in artistic élan to its inspiration. Brava!" — Robin Oliveira, author of My Name is Mary Sutter and I Always Loved You
"Rembrandt's 'The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp' is a narrative in paint which tells a story of Amsterdam in its Golden Age. Now, Nina Siegal's lovely novel dissects the dissection, evocatively translating the painted narrative into words, bringing a grim tableau to life and reanimating a moment in history when art, science, life, and death converged."
—Russell Shorto, author of Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City
"Brilliantly structured, wonderfully evocative, filled with vivid characters, The Anatomy Lesson transports the reader to that day in 1632 when the coat thief Aris Kindt passed from life to death and from death, thanks first to Rembrandt and now Nina Siegal, into immortality."
— Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy
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THE ANATOMY LESSON (a novel) is published by Nan A. Talese/Knopf Doubleday in 2014. It will also be available in Dutch, Polish and Portuguese.
THE ANATOMY LESSON is currently available in hardcover (deckle edged), paperback and digital edition. The audio book was a finalist for the 2015 Audie Awards from the Audible Publishers Association in the category of multiple-voice performance.
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