Helen DeWitt | |
---|---|
Born | 1957 (age 66–67) Takoma Park, Maryland, U.S. |
Occupation | Writer |
Period | 2000–present |
Genre | Novel |
Notable works | The Last Samurai Lightning Rods Some Trick |
Website | |
helendewitt |
Helen DeWitt (born 1957) is an American novelist. She is the author of the novels The Last Samurai (2000) and Lightning Rods (2011) and the short story collection Some Trick (2018) and, in collaboration with the Australian journalist Ilya Gridneff, has written Your Name Here. [1] She lives in Berlin. [2]
DeWitt grew up primarily in Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador [3] ), as her parents worked in the United States diplomatic service. After a year at Northfield Mount Hermon School and two short periods at Smith College, DeWitt studied classics at the University of Oxford, first at Lady Margaret Hall, and then at Brasenose College for her D.Phil., where her thesis examined the concept of propriety in ancient literary criticism. [4] Afterwards she became a junior research fellow at Somerville College. [5]
DeWitt is best known for her debut novel, The Last Samurai . She held a variety of jobs while struggling to finish a book, including dictionary text tagger, copytaker, Dunkin' Donuts employee, legal secretary, and working at a laundry service. During this time she reportedly attempted to finish many novels, before finally completing The Last Samurai, her 50th manuscript, in 1998. [3] [6] It was published in 2000 by Talk Miramax Books.
In 1999, DeWitt had completed another novel, Lightning Rods , and later signed a contract for it with Miramax Books in 2003, but it remained unpublished and in limbo. After Miramax Books was folded into Hyperion Books in late 2007, she asked for the rights to be returned. [7] [8] [9] [10] It was eventually published in 2011 by New Directions.
In 2005 she collaborated with Ingrid Kerma, the London-based painter, writing "limit5" for the exhibition "Blushing Brides".
An excerpt from an in-progress novel set in Flin Flon, Manitoba, has been published online by Open Book: Ontario at the end of an article about the novel and DeWitt's difficulties in finding a publisher. [11]
Her short story "Climbers", which explores artistic ideals and commercial realities of the writing life, was published in Harper's Magazine November 2014. [12]
In 2018, a collection of thirteen of her short stories, Some Trick, was published by New Directions. It was shortlisted for the 2019 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. [13]
DeWitt published a novella, The English Understand Wool, in 2022. The novella was published as part of a new series from New Directions Publishing, "Storybook ND", which aims to deliver "the pleasure one felt as a child reading a marvelous book from cover to cover in an afternoon". [14] [15]
Flin Flon is a mining city, located on a correction line on the border of the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with the majority of the city located within Manitoba. Residents thus travel southwest into Saskatchewan, and northeast into Manitoba. The city is incorporated in and is jointly administered by both provinces.
Catherine Ann Asaro is an American science fiction and fantasy author, singer and teacher. She is best known for her books about the Ruby Dynasty, called the Saga of the Skolian Empire.
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Anna Seghers, is the pseudonym of German writer Anna Reiling, who was notable for exploring and depicting the moral experience of the Second World War. Born into a Jewish family and married to a Hungarian Communist, Seghers escaped Nazi-controlled territory through wartime France. She was granted a visa and gained ship's passage to Mexico, where she lived in Mexico City (1941–47).
Catherine Lim Poh Imm is a Singaporean fiction author known for writing about Singapore society and of themes of traditional Chinese culture. Hailed as the "doyenne of Singapore writers", Lim has published nine collections of short stories, five novels, two poetry collections, and numerous political commentaries to date. Her social commentary in 1994, titled The PAP and the people - A Great Affective Divide and published in The Straits Times, criticised the ruling political party's agendas.
Kelley Eskridge is an American writer of fiction, non-fiction and screenplays. Her work is generally regarded as speculative fiction and is associated with the more literary edge of the category, as well as with the category of slipstream fiction.
The Last Samurai (2000) is the first novel by American writer Helen DeWitt. It follows a single mother and her young son, a child prodigy, who embarks on a quest to find his father. Despite selling well and garnering critical acclaim on publication, it was out of print for almost a decade; when reissued in 2016, it received renewed praise and accolades.
St Mawr is a short novel written by D. H. Lawrence. It was first published in 1925.
James Edward Preston Muddock also known as "Joyce Emmerson Preston Muddock" and "Dick Donovan", was a prolific British journalist and author of mystery and horror fiction. For a time his detective stories were as popular as those of Arthur Conan Doyle. Between 1889 and 1922 he published nearly 300 detective and mystery stories.
Qurratulain Hyder was an Indian Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding and influential literary names in Urdu literature, she is best known for her magnum opus, Aag Ka Darya, a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan, that stretches from the fourth century BC to post partition of India.
The Penelopiad is a novella by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It was published in 2005 as part of the first set of books in the Canongate Myth Series where contemporary authors rewrite ancient myths. In The Penelopiad, Penelope reminisces on the events of the Odyssey, life in Hades, Odysseus, Helen of Troy, and her relationships with her parents. A Greek chorus of the twelve maids, who Odysseus believed were disloyal and whom Telemachus hanged, interrupt Penelope's narrative to express their view on events. The maids' interludes use a new genre each time, including a jump-rope rhyme, a lament, an idyll, a ballad, a lecture, a court trial and several types of songs.
Louise Welsh is an English-born author of short stories and psychological thrillers, resident in Glasgow, Scotland. She has also written three plays, an opera, edited volumes of prose and poetry, and contributed to journals and anthologies. In 2004, she received the Corine Literature Prize.
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Miramax Books was an American publishing company started by Bob and Harvey Weinstein of Miramax Films to publish movie tie-ins. Between 2000 and 2005, while Jonathan Burnham was its president and editor-in-chief, the imprint published the memoirs of many major celebrities, including David Boies, Madeleine Albright, Rudy Giuliani, and Tim Russert, as well as Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai. It later published the first three books of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series before being folded into Hyperion Books in late 2007.
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Lightning Rods is a 2011 novel by Helen DeWitt. It was DeWitt's second novel, following The Last Samurai. Though written immediately after The Last Samurai, it remained unpublished for more than a decade before it was published by New Directions.
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The English Understand Wool is a 2022 novella by American author Helen DeWitt. The novella was published by New Directions.