Francine Prose (born April 1, 1947) is an American novelist,

short story writer A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal an ...

, and

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or govern ...

. She is a

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to inclu ...

Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 18 ...

, and was formerly president of

PEN American Center PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922 and headquartered in New York City, is a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of liter ...

Life and career

Born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

, Prose graduated from

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 ...

in 1968. She received the

PEN Translation Prize The PEN Translation Prize (formerly known as the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize through 2008) is an annual award given by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to outstanding translations into the English language. It has been p ...

in 1988 and received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

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 Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

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

, a New York City-based

literary society A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of writing or a specific author. Modern literary societies typically promote research, publish newsle ...

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. 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. Prose was succeeded by philosopher and novelist

Kwame Anthony Appiah Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah ( ; born 8 May 1954) is a philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah ...

as president of PEN in April 2009. Prose sat on the board of judges for the PEN/Newman's Own Award. Her novel, ''Blue Angel'', a

satire Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...

about sexual harassment on college campuses, was a finalist for the

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 N ...

. One of her novels, '' Household Saints'', was adapted for a movie by Nancy Savoca. Prose received the

Rome Prize The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Prizes have been awarded annually since 1921, with a hiatus ...

in 2006.

In 2010, Prose received the

Washington University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is ...

International Humanities Medal. The medal, awarded biennially and accompanied by a cash prize of $25,000, is given to honor a person whose humanistic endeavors in scholarship, journalism, literature, or the arts have made a difference in the world. Other winners include Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk in 2006, journalist Michael Pollan in 2008, and documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns, in 2012.

American PEN criticism

During the 2015 controversy regarding American PEN's decision to honor ''

Charlie Hebdo ''Charlie Hebdo'' (; meaning ''Charlie Weekly'') is a French satirical weekly magazine, featuring cartoons, reports, polemics, and jokes. Stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication has been described as anti-racist, sceptical, secular ...

'' with its annual Freedom of Expression Courage Award, she, alongside

Michael Ondaatje Philip Michael Ondaatje (; born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, editor, and filmmaker. He is the recipient of multiple literary awards such as the Governor General's Award, the Giller ...

Teju Cole Teju Cole (born June 27, 1975) is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian. He is the author of a novella ''Every Day Is for the Thief'' (2007), a novel ''Open City'' (2011), an essay collection ''Known and Strange Things'' (20 ...

, Peter Carey,

Rachel Kushner Rachel Kushner (born 1968) is an American writer, known for her novels '' Telex from Cuba'' (2008), '' The Flamethrowers'' (2013), and ''The Mars Room'' (2018). Early life Kushner was born in Eugene, Oregon, the daughter of two Communist scientist ...

and Taiye Selasi, withdrew from the group's annual awards gala and signed a letter dissociating themselves from the award, stating that although

the murders ''The Murders'' is a Canadian police procedural drama television series created by Damon Vignale. Starring Jessica Lucas and produced by Muse Entertainment in conjunction with Rogers Media, the series debuted on Citytv and FX in Canada on Mar ...

were "sickening and tragic," they did not believe that ''Charlie Hebdo''s work deserved an award. The letter was soon co-signed by more than 140 other PEN members. Francine Prose published an article in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'' justifying her position, stating that: "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." Prose was criticized for her views by Katha Pollitt, Alex Massie, Michael C. Moynihan, Nick Cohen and others, most notably by

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and W ...

, who in a letter to PEN described Prose and the five other authors who withdrew as

fellow traveller The term ''fellow traveller'' (also ''fellow traveler'') identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that o ...

s 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."

''The New Yorker'' controversy

On January 7, 2018, in a

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

post,Post
by Francine Prose, Facebook. January 7, 2018. Accessed January 18, 2018. Prose accused the author Sadia Shepard of plagiarizing

Mavis Gallant Mavis Leslie de Trafford Gallant, , née Young (11 August 1922 – 18 February 2014), was a Canadian writer who spent much of her life and career in France. Best known as a short story writer, she also published novels, plays and essays. Pe ...

's "The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street", which had appeared in ''

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 issue ...

'' on December 14, 1963. Shepard's piece had been published online by ''The New Yorker'' and was scheduled for release in the January 8, 2018 issue. Though Shepard's story reimagines the original in a new context, with added detail and altered character dynamics, Prose contended that the similarities between the two stories constituted theft, writing in her original post that the story is a "scene by scene, plot-turn by plot-turn, gesture by gesture, line-of-dialogue by line-of-dialogue copy—the only major difference being that the main characters are Pakistanis in Connecticut during the Trump era instead of Canadians in post-WWII Geneva." In a letter to ''The New Yorker'', Prose maintained her original stance, asking, "Is it really acceptable to change the names and the identities of fictional characters and then claim the story as one's own original work? Why, then, do we bother with copyrights?" Responding to Prose's accusation, Shepard acknowledged her debt to Gallant but maintained that her use of Gallant's story of self-exile in postwar Europe to explore the immigrant experience of Pakistani Muslims in today's America was justified.

Bibliography

Novels

* 1973: ''Judah the Pious'', Atheneum (Macmillan reissue 1986 ) * 1974: ''The Glorious Ones'', Atheneum (Harper Perennial reissue 2007 ) * 1977: ''Marie Laveau'', Berkley Publishing Corp. () * 1978: ''Animal Magnetism'', G.P. Putnam's Sons. () * 1981: ''Household Saints'', St. Martin's Press () * 1983: ''Hungry Hearts'', Pantheon () * 1986: ''Bigfoot Dreams'', Pantheon () * 1992: ''Primitive People'', Farrar, Straus & Giroux () * 1995: ''Hunters and Gatherers'', Farrar, Straus & Giroux () * 2000: '' Blue Angel'', Harper Perennial () * 2003: '' After'', HarperCollins () * 2005: ''A Changed Man'', HarperCollins () – winner of the 2006 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for fiction * 2007: ''Bullyville'', HarperTeen () * 2008: ''Goldengrove'', HarperCollins () * 2009: ''Touch'', HarperTeen () * 2011: ''My New American Life'', Harper () * 2012: ''The Turning'', HarperTeen () * 2014: ''Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932'', Harper () * 2016: ''Mister Monkey'', Harper, () * 2021: ''The Vixen,'' Harper ()

Short story collections

* 1988: ''Women and Children First'', Pantheon () * 1997: ''Guided Tours of Hell'', Metropolitan () * 1998: ''The Peaceable Kingdom'', Farrar Straus & Giroux ()

Children's picture books

* 2005: ''Leopold, the Liar of Leipzig'', illustrated by Einav Aviram, HarperCollins (),

Nonfiction

* 2002: ''The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists They Inspired'', HarperCollins () * 2003: ''Gluttony'', Oxford University Press () – second in a series about the

seven deadly sins The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings. Although they are not directly mentioned in the Bible, there are parallels with the seven things ...

* 2003: ''Sicilian Odyssey'', National Geographic () * 2005: ''

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...

: Painter of Miracles'', Eminent Lives () * 2006: ''

Reading Like a Writer {{Infobox book , , name = Reading Like a Writer , title_orig = , translator = , image = Readinglikeawriter.jpg , caption = Cover of the first edition , author = Francine Prose , illustrator = , cover_art ...

'', HarperCollins () * 2008: ''The Photographs of

Marion Post Wolcott Marion Post Wolcott (June 7, 1910 – November 24, 1990) was an American photographer who worked for the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression documenting poverty, the Jim Crow South, and deprivation. Early life Marion Pos ...

''. Washington, DC: Library of Congress () * 2009: ''

Anne Frank Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...

: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife'', HarperCollins () * 2015: ''

Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with ...

– The Shock of the Modern'',

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Univer ...

() * 2020: ''

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, n ...

Pietro Aretino Pietro Aretino (, ; 19 or 20 April 1492 – 21 October 1556) was an Italian author, playwright, poet, satire, satirist and blackmailer, who wielded influence on contemporary art and politics. He was one of the most influential writers of his tim ...

'' (with Xavier F. Salomon), The Frick Collection ()

Book reviews

*March 13, 2005: "'The Glass Castle': Outrageous Misfortune": '' The Glass Castle'', by Jeannette Walls *May 22, 2005: "'Oh the Glory of It All': Poor Little Rich Boy": ''

Oh the Glory of It All ''Oh the Glory of it All'' (2005), is a work of non-fiction by Sean Wilsey, published by Penguin Press. A humorous coming-of-age memoir, the book chronicles Wilsey's troubled years growing up in a wealthy and prominent San Francisco San ...

'', by Sean Wilsey *June 12, 2005: "'Marriage, a History': Lithuanians and Letts Do It", ''Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, Or How Love Conquered Marriage'', by Stephanie Coontz * December 4, 2005: "Slayer of Taboos", ''The New York Times'': ''D. H. Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider'', by John Worthen * April 2, 2006: "Science Fiction", ''The New York Times'': ''The Book About Blanche and Marie'', by Per Olov Enquist * July 9, 2006: "The Folklore of Exile", ''The New York Times'': '' Last Evenings on Earth'', by

Roberto Bolaño Roberto Bolaño Ávalos (; 28 April 1953 – 15 July 2003) was a Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. In 1999, Bolaño won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel ''Los detectives salvajes'' ('' The Savage Detectives ...

* December 2008: "More is More: Roberto Bolaño's Magnum Opus", ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'': ''

2666 ''2666'' is the last novel by Roberto Bolaño. It was released in 2004, a year after Bolaño's death. It is over 1100 pages long in Spanish, and almost 900 in its English translation, it is divided into five parts. An English-language translat ...

'', by Roberto Bolaño * December/January 2010: "Altar Ego", '' Bookforum'': ''

Ayn Rand and the World She Made ''Ayn Rand and the World She Made'' is a 2009 biography of Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand by Anne C. Heller. Background Heller was a journalist who first heard of Rand while working as a magazine editor. Writer Suze Orman gave Heller a co ...

'', by Anne C. Heller

Awards

* 1974:

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.Mark Podwal Mark Podwal (born June 8, 1945) is an artist, author, filmmaker and physician. He may have been best known initially for his drawings on The New York Times Op-Ed page. In addition, he is the author and illustrator of numerous books. Most of these ...

Notes

External links

* *
2007 Interview
by Betsy Sussler with

A. M. Homes Amy M. Homes (pen name A. M. Homes; born December 18, 1961) is an American writer best known for her controversial novels and unusual short stories, which feature extreme situations and characters. Notably, her novel ''The End of Alice'' (1996) i ...

and Francine Prose, ''

Bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...

'', 16 September 2007 {{DEFAULTSORT:Prose, Francine 1947 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American short story writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American short story writers 21st-century American women writers American women novelists American women short story writers Bard College faculty Harper's Magazine people Harvard Advocate alumni Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Novelists from Iowa Novelists from New York (state) Radcliffe College alumni Writers from Brooklyn American women academics Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters