Andrea Lee (born 1953) is an American-born author of

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s, short fiction, and

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...

s. Her stories are often international in setting and explore questions of race and culture, as well as ideas surrounding national identity and foreignness.

Early life

Andrea Lee was born in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

in 1953, as the youngest of three children in a middle-class family; her father was a Baptist minister and her mother was an elementary school teacher. Lee was born into an African American family, but quickly became surrounded by many white people which influenced her view of herself and later shaped her works. Lee was educated at the privateRobert Fikes
"Lee, Andrea (1953– )"
BlackPast,org.

Baldwin School The Baldwin School (simply referred to as Baldwin School or Baldwin) is a private school for girls in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1888 by Florence Baldwin. The school occupies a 19th-century resort hotel designed by ...

in Bryn Mawr. After earning a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in English from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

, Lee pursued her dream to live in Europe and moved to

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

for a year (1978–79) with her first husband. She lived in the Soviet Union and kept a diary of observations of the people and culture, and drew from that for her first book, a memoir titled ''Russian Journal'' published in 1981. The memoir was born from Lee's empathetic and insightful observations of those around her. This memoir was nominated for a

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

and won the Jean Stein Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Career

After returning to the United States, Lee worked for several years as a staff writer on ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' before moving on to her own freelance work. She is now a contract writer for The New Yorker. She has also been featured in ''Gourmet'', ''Allure'', ''W'', ''House & Garden'', and the ''Oxford American'' ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine Supplement (publishing), supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted man ...

'', ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', ''

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'', ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'', ''

The Oxford American The ''Oxford American'' is a quarterly magazine that focuses on the American South. First publication The magazine was begun in late 1989 in Oxford, Mississippi, by Marc Smirnoff (born July 11, 1963). The name "Oxford American" is a play on ''T ...

'', as well as the textbook ''Elements of Literature''. Her short stories have been anthologized, including "Winter Barley" in ''

The Best American Short Stories 1993 ''The Best American Short Stories 1993'', a volume in ''The Best American Short Stories series'', was edited by Katrina Kenison and by guest editor Louise Erdrich Louise Erdrich ( ; born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954) is an American auth ...

'', "Brothers and Sisters Around the World" in ''

The Best American Short Stories 2001 ''The Best American Short Stories 2001'', a volume in ''The Best American Short Stories series'', was edited by Katrina Kenison and by guest editor Barbara Kingsolver Barbara Kingsolver (born April 8, 1955) is an American novelist, essayist and ...

'', and "Anthropology" in '' The New Granta Book of the American Short Story'' (2007, edited by

Richard Ford Richard Ford (born February 16, 1944) is an American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel '' The Sportswriter'' and its sequels, '' Independence Day'', ''The Lay of the Land'' and ''Let Me Be Frank With You'', and t ...

). Her first novel, ''Sarah Phillips'', was published in 1984. It has semi-autobiographical elements, featuring an African-American woman from Philadelphia, with a father who is a minister and a mother who is an elementary school teacher. The protagonist marries a white man who she met at Harvard, and travels with him to Russia. The novel grapples with the same issues of identity and self that Lee herself dealt with throughout her lifetime. Themes of alienation and loneliness are prominent as the protagonist struggles to grapple with her own black identity while trying to fit in to the prominent white culture. Her collection of short stories, ''Interesting Women: Stories'' (2001), featured African-American women abroad, especially in Italy. She has explored points of view of educated young women from privileged backgrounds, negotiating European societies and questions of race and class. Her novel ''Lost Hearts in Italy: A Novel'' (2006), also featured Americans in Europe. Lee spoke in an interview and said that, "What I like to investigate when I write is what people dream about. What fascinates me is fantasy, the dream of being away, the state of being foreign, of being apart." Andrea Lee's work aims to combine adventure and imaginative pieces while grappling with complex topics of race, gender, class, and identity in the modern world. Her writing also highlights the contrasts in these topics between countries around the world.

Personal life

Lee has lived in Torino, Italy since 1992 with her Italian husband and their two children.

Selected works

* ''Russian Journal'', 1981 (nominated for a

National Book Award for Nonfiction The National Book Award for Nonfiction is one of five U.S. annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by U.S. citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers". The panelists ...

)Milena Vercellino
"Andrea Lee"
. Interview in ''The American Magazine'', 11 November 2006. * ''Sarah Phillips'' (novel) 1984 * ''Interesting Women: Stories'', 2002 (translated into Italian and published in Italy) * ''Lost Hearts in Italy: A Novel'', 2006 * "Anthropology" (short story), 2002 * * ''Red Island House: A Novel'', 2021

References

External links

"Andrea Lee"

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...

. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Andrea Living people Harvard University alumni Novelists from Pennsylvania 20th-century American women writers American memoirists African-American non-fiction writers American women memoirists The Baldwin School alumni 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists 1953 births The New Yorker people American women short story writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers African-American novelists 20th-century African-American women writers 20th-century African-American writers 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American people