Gina Berriault (January 1, 1926 – July 15, 1999), was an American novelist and short story writer.
Biography
Berriault was born in
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California.
Incorporate ...
, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. Her father was a freelance writer and Berriault took her inspiration from him, using his stand-up typewriter to write her first stories while still in grammar school.
Berriault had a prolific writing career, which included stories, novels and screenplays. Her writing tended to focus on life in and around San Francisco. She published four novels and three collections of short stories, including '' Women in Their Beds: New & Selected Stories'' (1996), which won the
PEN/Faulkner Award
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Fi ...
, the
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Rea Award for the Short Story, for outstanding achievement in that genre.
Berriault taught writing at the
Iowa Writers Workshop
The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wr ...
and San Francisco State University. She also received a grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram-Merrill Fellowship, a Commonwealth Gold Medal for Literature, the Pushcart Prize and several O'Henry prizes.
She adapted her short story " The Stone Boy" for a film of the same title, released in 1984. The same story had previously been adapted by another writer for a 1960 television presentation.
Death and legacy
Berriault died in 1999, at age 73, at Marin General Hospital in
Greenbrae, California
Greenbrae is a small unincorporated community in Marin County, California. It is located south-southeast of downtown San Rafael, at an elevation of 33 feet (10 m), located adjacent to U.S. Route 101 at the opening of the Ross Valley. Part of ...
. The Gina Berriault Award, created by
Peter Orner
Peter Orner is an American writer. He is the author of two novels, two story collections and a book of essays. Orner holds the Professorship of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and was formerly a professor of creative writing at ...
and Fourteen Hills Review at San Francisco State University in 2009, honors Berriault's legacy.
Bibliography
;Novels
* ''The Descent'' (1960)
* ''A Conference of Victims'' (1962)
* ''The Son'' (1966)
* ''The Lights of Earth'' (1984)
;Story collections
* ''Short Story'' (1958; a
Scribner's
Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawli ...
Narrative Magazine
''Narrative'' is an online magazine and website that is dedicated to advancing the literary arts in the digital age and publishes fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and art. It was founded in 2003.
History and profile
Founded in 2003, the l ...