Francine Prose

Francine Prose

Prose at the 2010 Brooklyn Book Festival
Born 1 April 1947
Brooklyn, New York
Occupation Novelist
Nationality American

Francine Prose (born April 1, 1947) is an award winning and critically well received American writer. She is a Visiting Professor of Literature at Bard College and has served as president of PEN American Center and sat on the boards for several awards.

Life and career

Prose graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968. She received the PEN Translation Prize in 1988 and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991. Prose's novel The Glorious Ones has been adapted into a musical with the same title by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. It ran at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City in the fall of 2007.

In March 2007, Prose was chosen to succeed American writer Ron Chernow beginning in April to serve a one-year term as president of PEN American Center,[1][2] a New York City-based literary society of writers, editors and translators that works to advance literature, defend free expression, and foster international literary fellowship. In March 2008, Prose ran unopposed for a second one-year term as PEN American Center president.[3] That same month, London artist Sebastian Horsley had been denied entry into the United States and PEN president Prose subsequently invited Horsley to speak at PENs annual festival of international literature in New York at the end of April 2008.[4] Prose was succeeded by philosopher and novelist Kwame Anthony Appiah as president of PEN in April 2009.[5][6]

Prose sat on the board of judges for the PEN/Newman's Own Award. Her novel, Blue Angel, a satire about sexual harassment on college campuses, was a finalist for the National Book Award. One of her novels, Household Saints, was adapted for a movie by Nancy Savoca.

American PEN criticism

During the 2015 controversy regarding American PEN's decision to honor Charlie Hebdo with its annual Freedom of Expression Courage Award, she, alongside Michael Ondaatje, Teju Cole, Peter Carey, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi, withdrew from the group’s annual awards gala[7], and signed a letter dissociating herself from the award [8] which was soon co-signed by more than 140 other PEN members.[9]

She explained her reasoning in the The Guardian saying the "narrative of the Charlie Hebdo murders – white Europeans killed in their offices by Muslim extremists – is one that feeds neatly into the cultural prejudices that have allowed our government to make so many disastrous mistakes in the Middle East [...] fan[ning] the flames of prejudice against Islam".[10] She also explained her views to The Nation's Katha Pollitt, saying that she was offended by Charlie Hebdo’s crude cartoons of "the Prophet" and mockery of the religion of France’s marginalized Muslim community, stating that “It’s a racist publication.”[11]

She received criticism for her views, most notably from Salman Rushdie, who in a letter to PEN described Prose and the five other authors who have withdrawn as “the fellow travellers” of “fanatical Islam, which is highly organised, well funded, and which seeks to terrify us all, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, into a cowed silence”.[12]

Bibliography

Novels

Short story collections

Children's books

Nonfiction

Book reviews

References

  1. ↑ "People", Publishers Weekly 254 (13), March 26, 2007: 16, retrieved January 15, 2014
  2. ↑ "Author Philip Roth wins Saul Bellow Award", USA Today, April 1, 2007, retrieved January 15, 2014
  3. ↑ Hillel Italie (March 9, 2008), "Prose to Serve 2nd Term As PEN Leader", Associated Press, retrieved January 15, 2014
  4. ↑ Motoko Rich (April 2, 2008), "Pen Rallies Behind Ousted Author", New York Times: E2, retrieved January 15, 2014
  5. ↑ Hillel Italie (March 13, 2009), "Appiah to be next president of writers group", Associated Press, retrieved January 15, 2014
  6. ↑ Francine Prose (14 January 2014). "How Have Tools Like Google and YouTube Changed the Way You Work?". New York Times.
  7. ↑ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/27/read-letters-comments-pen-writers-protesting-charlie-hebdo-award/
  8. ↑ http://www.vulture.com/2015/04/how-and-why-6-writers-denounced-pen.html
  9. ↑ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/30/145-pen-writers-thus-far-objected-charlie-hedbo-award-6/
  10. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/28/i-admire-charlie-hebdos-courage-but-it-does-not-deserve-a-pen-award
  11. ↑ http://www.thenation.com/blog/205897/charlie-hebdo-deserves-its-award-courage-free-expression-heres-why
  12. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/30/charlie-hebdo-pen-award-salman-rushdie-twitter-scrap

External links

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