Rebecca Donner

Last updated
Rebecca Donner
Education University of California, Berkeley (BA)
Columbia University (MFA)
OccupationWriter
Awards National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography (2022)
PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography (2022)
Guggenheim Fellowship (2022)
The Chautauqua Prize (2022)

Rebecca Donner is a Canadian-born writer. She is the author of All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, which won the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award, and The Chautauqua Prize [1] [2] She was a 2023 Visiting Scholar at Oxford, [3] and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of her contribution to historical scholarship. [4] She is currently a 2023-2024 Fellow at Harvard. [5]

Contents

Biography

Donner was born in Canada, and during childhood lived in Japan, Michigan, Virginia, and California. [6] [7] She received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley and MFA from Columbia University. [8] [9] She taught writing at Wesleyan University. [10] She wrote “Sunset Terrace,” a novel set in Los Angeles, followed by “Burnout,” a graphic novel about ecoterrorism. [9]

In 2021, Donner published a biography, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, of her great-great-aunt, Mildred Harnack, an American who was part of the Nazi resistance in Germany and was executed in 1943 on Hitler's orders. [7] [9] [11] The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, and The Chautauqua Prize [1] [9] [12] [13] [14] [15] All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days was also a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Plutarch Award, [16] and a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction at the 2022 Governor General's Awards. [17] Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird praised the book as "a stunning literary achievement." [18] [19]

Donner is an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of her contribution to historical scholarship. [20] She received a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship in the general nonfiction category. [21] In 2023, Donner was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford. [3] She is currently a 2023-2024 Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. [5]

Awards and honors

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Powers</span> American novelist

Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. He has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2023, Powers has published thirteen novels and has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Bidart</span> American poet (born 1939)

Frank Bidart is an American academic and poet, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Reiss</span> American author, historian, and journalist

Tom Reiss is an American author, historian, and journalist. He is the author of three nonfiction books, the latest of which is The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (2012), which received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. His previous books are Führer-Ex: Memoirs of a Former Neo-Nazi (1996), the first inside exposé of the European neo-Nazi movement; and The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life (2005), which became an international bestseller. As a journalist, Reiss has written for The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Patchett</span> American novelist and memoirist (born 1963)

Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023). The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Young (poet)</span> Writer (born 1970)

Kevin Young is an American poet and the director of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture since 2021. Author of 11 books and editor of eight others, Young previously served as Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. A winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as a finalist for the National Book Award for his 2003 collection Jelly Roll: A Blues, Young was Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University and curator of Emory's Raymond Danowski Poetry Library. In March 2017, Young was named poetry editor of The New Yorker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rebecca Solnit</span> American writer

Rebecca Solnit is an American writer. She has written on a variety of subjects, including feminism, the environment, politics, place, and art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Eig</span> American journalist and biographer (born 1964)

Jonathan Eig is an American journalist and biographer. He is the author of six books, the most recent being King: A Life (2023), a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr.

John Matteson is an American professor of English and legal writing at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for his first book, Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father.

Rebecca "Maud" Newton is a writer, critic, and former lawyer born in Dallas, Texas in 1971. She was raised in Miami, Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Fountain</span> American fiction writer

Ben Fountain is an American writer currently living in Dallas, Texas. He has won many awards including a PEN/Hemingway Award for Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories (2007) and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for his debut novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2012).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brenda Shaughnessy</span> American poet (born 1970)

Brenda Shaughnessy is an Asian American poet most known for her poetry books Our Andromeda and So Much Synth. Her book, Our Andromeda, was named a Library Journal "Book of the Year," one of The New York Times's "100 Best Books of 2013." Additionally, The New York Times and Publishers Weekly named So Much Synth as one of the best poetry collections of 2016. Shaughnessy works as an Associate Professor of English in the MFA Creative Writing program at Rutgers University–Newark.

The National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, established in 1976, is an annual American literary award presented by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English." Awards are presented annually to books published in the U.S. during the preceding calendar year in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir/Autobiography, Biography, and Criticism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmen Giménez</span> American writer and editor

Carmen Giménez, also known as Carmen Giménez Smith, is an American poet, writer, and editor.

The Chautauqua Prize is an annual American literary award established by the Chautauqua Institution in 2012. The winner receives US$7,500 and all travel and expenses for a one-week summer residency at Chautauqua. It is a "national prize that celebrates a book of fiction or literary/narrative nonfiction that provides a richly rewarding reading experience and honors the author for a significant contribution to the literary arts."

The PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award is awarded by the PEN America to honor a "distinguished biography possessing notable literary merit which has been published in the United States during the previous calendar year." The award carries a $5,000 prize.

<i>The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo</i> Book by Tom Reiss

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo is a 2012 biography of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas written by Tom Reiss. The book presents the life and career of Dumas as a soldier and officer during the French Revolution, as well as his military service in Italy during the French Revolutionary Wars and later in Egypt under Napoleon. Reiss offers insight into slavery and the life of a man of mixed race during the French Colonial Empire. He also reveals how Dumas's son – author Alexandre Dumas – viewed his father, who served as the inspiration for some of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) and The Three Musketeers (1844).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tara Westover</span> American historian and author

Tara Westover is an American memoirist, essayist and historian. Her memoir Educated (2018) debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list and was a finalist for a number of national awards, including the LA Times Book Prize, PEN America's Jean Stein Book Award, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award. The New York Times ranked Educated as one of the 10 Best Books of 2018. Westover was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019.

Ruth Franklin is an American literary critic. She is a former editor at The New Republic and an Adjunct professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her first biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2016.

Amy Stanley is an American historian of early modern Japan. In 2007, Stanley began teaching in the Department of History at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Japanese history, global history, and women's/gender history. She is best known for her most book Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for biography, and was a finalist for both the Baillie Gifford Prize and Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World is a biographical book by Amy Stanley which was published on July 14, 2020 by Charles Scribner's Sons.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Borgstrom, Megan (2022-06-02). "Rebecca Donner's 'All The Frequent Troubles Of Our Days' Wins 2022 Chautauqua Prize". Chautauqua Institution. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  2. ↑ "Bio". Rebecca Donner. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  3. 1 2 3 "Rebecca Donner". oclw.web.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  4. ↑ https://files.royalhistsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/18102908/Fellows-Oct-23_pdf.pdf
  5. 1 2 3 "Rebecca Donner". Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  6. ↑ "Rebecca Donner". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  7. 1 2 Patrick, Bethanne (19 August 2021). "How a novelist cracked the real-life story of her Nazi-fighting ancestor". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  8. ↑ "Alumna Rebecca Donner '01 Wins National Book Critics Circle Award". Columbia - School of the Arts. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  9. 1 2 3 4
  10. ↑ "Advanced Fiction Writing ENGL 146". owaprod-pub.wesleyan.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  11. ↑ "Rebecca Donner Tells The Story Of Her Great-Great-Aunt, Executed For Nazi Resistance". NPR.org. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  12. 1 2 Klein, Julia M. (3 August 2021). "In World War II Berlin, a little-known story of German resistance". The Forward . Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  13. ↑ "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner: 2021 Biography Finalist". National Book Critics Circle . 2022-03-15. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  14. ↑ "The National Book Critics Circle Award". National Book Critics Circle . Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  15. ↑ "PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography". PEN America. 2020-06-09. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  16. ↑ "BIO Announces Plutarch Award Finalists". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  17. ↑ "The finalists for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction". CBC Books . October 12, 2022. Retrieved October 12, 2022.
  18. ↑ "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days". April 7, 2020 – via www.hachettebookgroup.com.
  19. ↑ Borgstrom, Megan (June 2, 2022). "Rebecca Donner's 'All The Frequent Troubles Of Our Days' Wins 2022 Chautauqua Prize". Chautauqua Institution.
  20. ↑ https://files.royalhistsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/18102908/Fellows-Oct-23_pdf.pdf
  21. ↑ "Rebecca Donner". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  22. ↑ "Rebecca Donner". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation... Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  23. ↑ Schaub, Michael (2022-03-18). "Announcing the Winners of the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Awards". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  24. ↑ "Announcing the 2022 PEN America Literary Awards Winners". PEN America. 2022-02-28. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  25. ↑ "Mariana Enriquez, Michael Connelly, S.A. Cosby among L.A. Times Book Prize finalists". Los Angeles Times. 2022-02-23. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  26. ↑ "The finalists for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction" . Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  27. ↑ "The Plutarch Award". Biographers International Organization. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  28. ↑ Saldarriaga, Nicole (July 14, 2021). "'All the Frequent Troubles of our Days' by Alumna Rebecca Donner '01 Coming in Early August". School of the Arts. columbia.edu. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  29. ↑ "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner". publishersweekly.com . Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  30. ↑ Donner, Rebecca; Freeman, Jason; Large, David Clay (August 9, 2021). "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days". C-SPAN video. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
  31. ↑ "BURNOUT". Kirkus Reviews . June 1, 2008. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  32. ↑ "SUNSET TERRACE". Kirkus Reviews . May 21, 2003. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  33. ↑ "SUNSET TERRACE by Rebecca Donner". publishersweekly.com . Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  34. ↑ Aures, Kam (January 25, 2004). "Rebecca Donner : Sunset Terrace : Book Review". mostlyfiction.com. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.