Jane Smiley facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jane Smiley
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Smiley at the 2009 Texas Book Festival
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| Born | September 26, 1949 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
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| Education | Vassar College (AB) University of Iowa (MA, MFA, PhD) |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1992 American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2001 |
Jane Smiley (born September 26, 1949) is a famous American novelist. She is well-known for her novels, especially A Thousand Acres, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992. This award is one of the highest honors for writers in the United States.
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About Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley was born in Los Angeles, California, on September 26, 1949. She grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, near St. Louis. She went to Vassar College and later studied at the University of Iowa. While studying, she also spent a year in Iceland as a Fulbright Scholar.
From 1981 to 1996, Smiley was a professor at Iowa State University. She taught students how to write creatively. In 1996, she moved to California. She returned to teaching writing at the University of California, Riverside, in 2015.
Her Writing Career
Smiley published her first novel, Barn Blind, in 1980. She won an O. Henry Award in 1985 for her short story "Lily." This story was published in The Atlantic Monthly magazine.
Her most famous book, A Thousand Acres, came out in 1991. This story is a modern version of William Shakespeare's play King Lear. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992. Later, in 1997, A Thousand Acres was made into a movie.
Another one of her novellas, The Age of Grief, was made into the 2002 movie The Secret Lives of Dentists. Smiley has also written essays for different books. For example, her essay "Why Bother?" is in a book called Knitting Yarns.
In 2005, she wrote a non-fiction book called Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel. This book explores the history and nature of novels. It talks about books from ancient Japan, like The Tale of Genji, to modern American stories.
In 2001, Jane Smiley became a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters. This is a group that honors important artists and writers. She has also taken part in many book festivals, like the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. In 2006, she received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award. She also led the judges for the Man Booker International Prize in 2009.
The author Jonathan Franzen thinks Smiley's book The Greenlanders is a great but often overlooked American novel.
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Smiley later wrote a series of three novels about an Iowa family. The first book, Some Luck, was published in 2014. The second book came out in 2015, and the third book followed later that same year.
Awards and Recognition
Jane Smiley received the important Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992 for her novel A Thousand Acres. In 2006, she won the Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature. This award is given each year in Rockville, Maryland, as part of a literary festival.
Her Books
Jane Smiley has written many different kinds of books.
Novels for Adults
- Barn Blind (1980)
- At Paradise Gate (1981)
- Duplicate Keys (1984)
- The Greenlanders (1988)
- A Thousand Acres (1991)
- Moo (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
These books are written for teenagers.
- 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)
See also
In Spanish: Jane Smiley para niños
