Lorraine Adams is an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

. As a journalist, she is known as a contributor to the '' New York Times Book Review'', and a former contributor to ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. As a novelist, she is known for the award-winning ''Harbor'' and its follow-up, ''The Room and the Chair''.

Early life

Lorraine Adams graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. in English from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1981 after completing a 76-page-long senior thesis titled "The Hero in Ezra Pound's Cantos." She then attended

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, graduating with an M.A. in English and American Literature in 1982.

Career

Journalism

She was a staff writer for ''

'', and ''

The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the '' Galvest ...

''. She regularly contributes to the '' New York Times Book Review'', and is a fellow at the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Adams and Dan Malone of ''The Dallas Morning News'' shared the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, citing "reporting that charged Texas police with extensive misconduct and abuses of power", including rights violations.

Novels

Her first novel was published in 2004, ''Harbor'', featuring

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

stowaways. It won accolades including ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'' Award for First Fiction,

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virginia ...

First Novelist Award, and ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...

'' Best Novel of 2004, and it made the New York Times Best Books of 2004 list. Her second novel, ''The Room and the Chair'', was published in 2010 and details the life of an American fighter pilot. The German-language edition is ''Crash'' (Zürich: Arche, 2011). Amy Wilentz, reviewing ''The Room and the Chair'' in the ''

'', stated, "Lorraine Adams is a singular and important American writer. ''The Room and the Chair'' establishes this without question: It is remarkable for its ambitions and its achievements. It's a war novel, a reporter's novel and a psychological thriller. It encompasses the broadest outlines of our world. It is also Adams' second novel, and it is gutsier and throws a wider net than the topical and gorgeously written ''Harbor'', her first. Both books are about U.S. involvement in the Middle East, about psychological and political blowback, about what happens when you wage a war and then suddenly it slaps you back, blindsides you."

Personal life

Adams lives in Harlem, New York and is married to the novelist

Richard Price Richard Price (23 February 1723 – 19 April 1791) was a British moral philosopher, Nonconformist minister and mathematician. He was also a political reformer, pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the French ...

Awards

* 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting * 2006 VCU First Novelist Award * 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship

Selected works

* "Almost Famous", ''Washington Monthly'', April 2002 * ''Harbor'', Random House, Inc., 2005, * ''The Room and the Chair'', Knopf, 2010, * ''

NYC 22 ''NYC 22'' (pronounced NYC 2-2) is an American police procedural drama television series that aired on CBS from April 15 to August 11, 2012, as a mid-season replacement for '' CSI: Miami''. On May 13, 2012, CBS canceled the series after one seas ...

'' "Block Party" July 2012

References

External links

"Turning Secret Intelligence to Fiction"
''The Wall Street Journal'', ALEXANDRA ALTER, FEBRUARY 3, 2010

''Powell's
"The Leonard Lopate Show"
''WNYC'', March 18, 2010

''The New York Times'', THE EDITORS, May 18, 2008

''The Washington Post'', The Reliable Source, May 20, 2012 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Lorraine 21st-century American novelists Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting winners The Washington Post people The Dallas Morning News people American women novelists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) American women journalists Princeton University alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers Refugees and displaced people in fiction