UChicago scholar finds unexpected kinship in Jane Austen’s works

In new book Austen Years , Prof. Rachel Cohen processes grief, life transitions through writing Rachel Cohen had never thought of herself as a Jane Austenite. An essayist who teaches English and creative writing at the University of Chicago, her work explores more recent authors such as James Baldwin, and time periods such as the Gilded Age and Civil Rights Era. However, during a period of her life shaped by the illness and death of her father, Cohen found herself drawn to Austen's books. For several years, she read almost nothing else. In her new book Austen Years , Cohen writes of life and reading from the perspective of a memoirist and through the lens of literary criticism. Austen's writing becomes a guide for Cohen's reflections in the wake of her father's passing and, after the births of her two children, as she looks toward the future. "I was writing about reading Austen in a personal way that a lot of the writing I've done hasn't been," Cohen said.