Evgenia Citkowitz | |
---|---|
Born | Eugenia Citkowitz [1] 1964 (age 59–60) New York, U.S. |
Occupation(s) | Playwright, author, journalist |
Years active | 2007–present |
Spouse | |
Children | 2 |
Parents | |
Relatives |
|
Family | Guinness |
Website | evgeniacitkowitz |
Evgenia Citkowitz (born Eugenia Citkowitz; 1964) is an American playwright, author and journalist.
Eugenia Citkowitz [1] was born in 1964 in the state of New York, the youngest of two daughters to Israel Citkowitz, an American pianist, composer and piano teacher, and Lady Caroline Blackwood, an English writer. [2] Citkowitz grew up in London, England; [3] about her childhood, she said [she had a] "chaotic home life, lonely at times, although I met many interesting people." [4] Her parents divorced in 1972, although her father continued to live nearby and helped raise her and her sisters until his death. [5] Citkowitz has four half-siblings. [6] Her stepfather was Robert Lowell, an American poet. [4]
Citkowitz attended a boarding school in Devon, South West England. [7] During her teenage years, she attended St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith. [8] Citkowitz graduated with a degree in English literature from Oxford University. [3] She was educated, briefly, in the United States. [9]
Through her mother, Citkowitz is a member of the Guinness family, a prominent Irish and British family in brewing, banking and politics. [10] Citkowitz is an heiress to the Guinness beer fortune. [4]
Citkowitz's maternal grandparents were Maureen Constance Guinness, an Anglo-Irish socialite, and Basil Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, an English politician. [11] Her uncle and aunt were Sheridan Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 5th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, an English noble, and Lindy Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, an English conservationist, and Citkowitz's fifth cousin.
Citkowitz's first book Ether was published in 2010, a collection of seven short stories and a novella. [12] Ether was picked as New York Times Editors' Choice and made it to The New Yorker's Book Club. [3]
Citkowitz's debut novel The Shades, a psychological thriller, was published on 19 June 2018. The Shades covers the impact of a daughter's death on a family as they try to move on with their grief. [13] Citkowitz stated that the purpose of the novel was to look into the "fragility of human existence" and the original story grew from the idea of "someone returning to their childhood home" that she then expanded upon. One of her primary focuses was to create characters that felt "authentic as people" in order to form empathy in the reader and also why she researched the intricacies of the fields and hobbies each of the characters practice in the novel, such as pottery. [14]
Citkowitz has written for various publications across the United Kingdom and the United States, including The Sunday Times , The London Magazine , The Guardian , The New York Times and Harper's Bazaar . [15]
Source: [16]
Citkowitz has previously been longlisted for The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, and was one of the winners of The Word Factory's Neil Gaiman, Fables for a Modern World story competition. [9]
Citkowitz keeps her personal life mostly private. [4] On 22 September 1990, Citkowitz married Julian Sands, an English actor; [17] after being introduced by John Malkovich. Sands disappeared in January 2023 during a hiking trip. His skeletal remains were found and identified in June 2023. [18] The couple have two daughters [19] and she is stepmother to a son from Sands' first marriage. [3] Since 1990, Citkowitz and her family have permanently resided in Los Angeles, California. [4] [20]
Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress. She first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew critics' attention in 1946 with her performance in Robert Siodmak's film noir The Killers. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in John Ford's Mogambo (1953), and for best actress for both a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for her performance in John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964). She was a part of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava,, was a British public servant and prominent member of Victorian society. In his youth he was a popular figure in the court of Queen Victoria, and became well known to the public after publishing a best-selling account of his travels in the North Atlantic.
Elizabeth Lee McGovern is an American-British actress. She has received many awards, including a Screen Actors Guild Award, three Golden Globe Award nominations, and one Academy Award nomination.
Patricia Davies Clarkson is an American actress. She has starred in numerous leading and supporting roles in a variety of films ranging from independent film features to major film studio productions. Her accolades include a Golden Globe Award and three Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and a Tony Award.
Emily Margaret Watson is an British actress. She began her career on stage and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1992. In 2002, she starred in productions of Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya at the Donmar Warehouse, and was nominated for the 2003 Olivier Award for Best Actress for the latter. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her debut film role as Bess McNeil in Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves (1996) and for her role as Jacqueline du Pré in Hilary and Jackie (1998), winning the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress for the latter. For her role as Margaret Humphreys in Oranges and Sunshine (2010), she was also nominated for the AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
Terence John Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 2nd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava DL JP, styled Lord Terence Blackwood between 1888 and 1900 and Earl of Ava between 1900 and 1902, was a British diplomat.
Julian Richard Morley Sands was an English actor. His break-out role was as George Emerson in A Room with a View (1985), and he also appeared in The Killing Fields (1984), Gothic (1986), Warlock (1989), Arachnophobia (1990), Naked Lunch (1991), Boxing Helena (1993), Leaving Las Vegas (1995),The Medallion (2003), Ocean's Thirteen (2007) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011). On television, he portrayed Vladimir Bierko in 24 (2006), Jor-El in Smallville (2009–2010) and voiced Valmont in Jackie Chan Adventures (2000–2002).
Lady Caroline Blackwood was an English writer, socialite, and muse. Her novels have been praised for their wit and intelligence. One of her works is an autobiography, which detailed her wealthy but unhappy childhood. She was born into an aristocratic British family, the eldest child of the 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and of Maureen Constance Guinness. All three of her husbands were famous personalities in their own right.
Hariot Georgina Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, was a British aristocrat and Vicereine of India, known for her success in the role of "diplomatic wife," and for leading an initiative to improve medical care for women in British India.
Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava,, styled Lord Frederick Blackwood between 1888 and 1918, was a British soldier and politician. He died in an aircraft crash in 1930 at the age of 55.
Basil Sheridan Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, styled Earl of Ava from 1918 until 1930, was a Conservative politician and soldier of the United Kingdom.
Sheridan Frederick Terence Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 5th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava was a British patron of the arts. Less formally, he was usually called Sheridan Dufferin.
The Guinness family is an extensive Irish family known for its accomplishments in brewing, banking, politics, and religious ministry. The brewing branch is particularly well known among the general public for producing the dry stout Guinness Beer. The founder of the dynasty, Arthur Guinness, is confirmed to have had McCartan origins. Beginning in the late 18th century, they became a prominent part of what is known in Ireland as 'the Ascendancy'.
Dakota Mayi Johnson is an American actress. The daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, she made her film debut at age ten with a minor role in Crazy in Alabama (1999), directed by her then-stepfather Antonio Banderas, and also starring her mother. After graduating from high school, she began auditioning for roles in Los Angeles and was cast in a minor part in The Social Network (2010). Johnson had her breakthrough playing the lead role of Anastasia Steele in the erotic Fifty Shades film series (2015–2018). In 2016, she received a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination and was featured in a Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Ava Marie DuVernay is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. She is a recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, two NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award, and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee of an Academy Award and Golden Globe. In 2011, she founded her independent distribution company ARRAY.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a 1962 mystery novel by American author Shirley Jackson. It was Jackson's final work, and was published with a dedication to Pascal Covici, the publisher, three years before the author's death in 1965. The novel is written in the voice of eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine "Merricat" Blackwood, who lives with her agoraphobic sister and ailing uncle on an estate. Six years before the events of the novel, the Blackwood family experienced a tragedy that left the three survivors isolated from their small village.
Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2011 erotic romance novel by British author E. L. James. It became the first instalment in the Fifty Shades novel series that follows the deepening relationship between a college graduate, Anastasia Steele, and a young business magnate, Christian Grey. It contains explicitly erotic scenes featuring elements of sexual practices involving BDSM.
Serena Belinda Rosemary Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, also known as Lindy Guinness, was a British artist, conservationist and businesswoman. She was married to the fifth Marquess from 1964 until his death in 1988.
Flora Curzon, Lady Howe was an American heiress and singer who twice married into the British aristocracy.
Israel Citkowitz was a Polish-born American pianist, composer, teacher, and critic.