Jane Smiley

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Jane Smiley (born September 26, 1949) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.

Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained a A.B. at Vassar College, then earned a M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. While working towards her doctorate, she also spent a year studying in Iceland as a Fulbright Scholar. From 1981 to 1996, she taught at Iowa State University.

Smiley published her first novel, Barn Blind, in 1980, and won a 1985 O. Henry Award for her short story "Lily", which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Her best-selling A Thousand Acres, a story based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992. It was adapted into a film of the same title in 1997.

Her most recent work, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005), is a non-fiction meditation on the history of the novel that spans works from Don Quixote to Charles Dickens to contemporary chick lit. In the tradition of E. M. Forster's seminal Aspects of the Novel, it stands as an important work of literary interpretation for the general reading audience of the 21st century.

In 2001, Smiley was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.


Contents

[edit] Quotes

In an article for Slate shortly after Election Day 2004, she wrote:

"The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry...I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 millions have not...Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states...The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America...The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do - they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable...Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are - they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence."

[edit] Works

[edit] Novels

[edit] Story collections

  • The Age of Grief (1992)

[edit] Nonfiction

  • Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005)

[edit] Articles

  • "Say It Ain't So, Huck: Second Thoughts on Mark Twain's 'Masterpiece'" (1995)

[edit] External links

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