Wired For Books home

Francine Prose's wit exposes the absurdities of human behavior through affectionate satire. Carlin Romano praises Prose as, "American literature's finest satirist of professionals with problems... Prose knows the territory and tweaks it deliciously." Prose's writing offers little salvation or refinement for American society, but it does force her readers to laugh at the flaws and blemishes of the adult world.

Prose has written 13 novels, among them Bigfoot Dreams, Primitive People, Household Saints, which was made into a 1993 film directed by Nancy Savoca; Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists They Inspired. Her short story collections include Women and Children First and The Peaceable Kingdom; she has also published three books of translation and a collection of novellas, Guided Tours of Hell. She has written five books for children. Her most recent novel is A Changed Man, published in March 2005.

Prose has taught at Harvard, the University of Arizona, the University of Utah, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the Sewanee and Bread Loaf Writers' Conferences. She is on the faculty of the New School MFA Program, a board member of PEN, a member of the New York Institute for the Humanities, and has been a Visiting Writer at the American Academy in Rome. She was one of the first recipients of a Director's Fellowship at the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers.

(Information provided by Harper Collins)

Selected Works:

• Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles (2005)
• A Changed Man (2005)
• After (2003)
• Gluttony: The Seven Deadly Sins (2003)
• The Lives of the Muses (2002)
• Primitive People (2001)
• Blue Angel (2000)

Awards:

• PEN Translation Prize
• Guggenheim Fellowship
• Fulbright Creative Writing Fellowship
• Two Jewish Book Council Prizes

Listen to Francine Prose read her story, Hansel and Gretel, in RealAudio
( 34 min. 54 sec.)

MP3 File

These files are for your personal use only.
Classroom use is permitted.
Redistribution is not permitted.