Jane Smiley (born September 26, 1949) is an American novelist. She won the

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...

in 1992 for her novel '' A Thousand Acres'' (1991).

Biography

Born in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, Smiley grew up in

Webster Groves, Missouri Webster Groves is an inner-ring Greater St. Louis, suburb of St. Louis in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The population was 24,010 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city is home to the main campus of Webster Universit ...

, a suburb of St Louis, and graduated from Community School and from

John Burroughs School John Burroughs School (JBS) is a private, non-sectarian college-preparatory school with 631 students in grades 7– 12. Its 49-acre () campus is located in Ladue, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Founded in 1923, it is named for U.S. naturali ...

. She obtained an AB in literature at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college be ...

(1971), then earned an MA (1975), MFA (1976) and

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

(1978) from the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

.Biography
at the ''

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''. While working toward her doctorate, she also spent a year studying in

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

as a

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the peopl ...

. From 1981 to 1996 she was a Professor of English at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricult ...

, teaching undergraduate and graduate creative-writing workshops. In 1996 she relocated to California. She returned to teaching creative writing at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of Cali ...

, in 2015.

Career

Smiley published her first novel, ''Barn Blind'', in

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union, grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning Sys ...

, and won a 1985 O. Henry Award for her short story ‘Lily’, which was published in ''

The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 ...

''. Her best-selling '' A Thousand Acres'', a story based on

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's ''

King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...

'', received the

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

. It was adapted into a film of the same title in 1997. Her novella ''The Age of Grief'' was made into the

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

film '' The Secret Lives of Dentists''. Her essay ‘Feminism Meets the Free Market’ was included in the 2006 anthology ''Mommy Wars'' by ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' writer Leslie Morgan Steiner. Her essay ‘Why Bother?’ appears in the anthology ''Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, ''published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2013. ''Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel'' (

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

) is a non-fiction meditation on the history and the nature of the novel, somewhat in the tradition of E. M. Forster's seminal '' Aspects of the Novel'', and roams from eleventh century Japan's

Murasaki Shikibu was a Japanese novelist, Japanese poetry#Age of Nyobo or court ladies, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Court in Kyoto, Imperial court in the Heian period. She was best known as the author of ''The Tale of Genji'', widely considered t ...

's ''

The Tale of Genji is a classic work of Japanese literature written by the noblewoman, poet, and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu around the peak of the Heian period, in the early 11th century. It is one of history's first novels, the first by a woman to have wo ...

'' to 21st-century American women's literature. In 2001 Smiley was elected a member of

The American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqua ...

. She has participated in the annual ''Los Angeles Times'' Festival of Books, the Cheltenham Festival, the

National Book Festival The National Book Festival is an annual literary festival held in Washington, D.C. in the United States; it is organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, and was founded by Laura Bush and James H. Billington in 2001. Background In 19 ...

, the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts and many others. She won the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, and chaired the judges' panel for the prestigious

Man Booker International Prize The International Booker Prize (formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize) is an international literary award hosted in the United Kingdom. The introduction of the International Prize to complement the Man Booker Prize, as the Boo ...

in 2009. Jonathan Franzen, author of '' The Corrections'' (2001), considers Smiley's book ''The Greenlanders'' to be greatly underappreciated and among the best works of contemporary American fiction. Smiley then wrote a trilogy of novels about an Iowa family over the course of generations. The first novel of the trilogy, ''Some Luck'', was published in 2014 by

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

. The second volume followed in the spring of 2015 and the third volume in the fall of 2015. Smiley's ''A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck'' has been compared to English author Jilly Cooper's 2010 novel '' Jump!''

Awards

Smiley received the

in 1992. In 2006 she received the Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature, which is given annually in Rockville, Maryland, the city where Fitzgerald, his wife and his daughter are buried, as part of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival.

Works

Novels

*''Barn Blind'' (1980) *''At Paradise Gate'' (1981) *''Duplicate Keys'' (1984) *''

The Greenlanders ''The Greenlanders'' is a 1988 historical-fiction epic novel by American author Jane Smiley. The novel gives a speculative account of the Norse inhabitation of Greenland in the 14th and 15th centuries, written in the style of an Saga, Icelandic ...

'' (1988) *'' A Thousand Acres'' (1991) *''

Moo A MOO ("Multi-user dungeon, MUD, object-oriented") is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users (players) are connected at the same time. The term MOO is used in two distinct, but related, senses. One is to refer to th ...

'' (1995) *''The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton'' (1998) *'' Horse Heaven'' (2000) *''Good Faith'' (2003) *''Ten Days in the Hills'' (2007) *''Private Life'' (2010) *'' Some Luck'' (2014) *''Early Warning'' (April, 2015) *''Golden Age'' (October 20, 2015) *'' Perestroika in Paris'' (2020) *'' A Dangerous Business'' (2022) *''Lucky'' (2024)

Short story collections

*''The Age of Grief'' (1987) *''Ordinary Love & Good Will'' (1989)

Non-fiction books

*''Catskill Crafts'' (1988) *''Charles Dickens'' (2003) *''A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck'' (2004) *''Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel'' (2005) *'' The Man Who Invented the Computer'' (2010)

Young adult novels

* ''The Georges and the Jewels'' (2009) * ''A Good Horse'' (2010) * ''True Blue'' (2011) * ''Pie in the Sky'' (2012) * ''Gee Whiz'' (2013) * ''Riding Lessons'' (2018) * ''Saddles and Secrets'' (2019) * ''Taking the Reins'' (2020)

Children's books

* ''Twenty Yawns'' (2016)

References

External links

* * * * *
2004 Slate article: "The unteachable ignorance of the red states"

* , review of ''Good Faith'' in the '' Oxonian Review''
2010 Monterey Weekly article: "In her new novel, ''Private Life'', the Pulitzer Prize-winning author uses family history as fictional fodder."KCRW Bookworm Interview
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smiley, Jane 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American women novelists American women short story writers American literary critics American women literary critics Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners O. Henry Award winners Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Iowa State University faculty People from Webster Groves, Missouri Novelists from Missouri 1949 births Living people Vassar College alumni University of Iowa alumni Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers American women mystery writers 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American short story writers Novelists from Iowa American women non-fiction writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American women academics John Burroughs School alumni National Book Critics Circle Award winners