Judith Thurman

Judith Thurman (born 1946)^[1] is an American writer, biographer, and critic. She is the recipient of the 1983 National Book Award for Nonfiction for her biography Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller.^[2][3] Her book Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette was a finalist for the 1999 nonfiction National Book Award.^[4] In 2016, she received the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.^[5]

Judith Thurman
Thurman in 2016
Born	1946 (age 77–78) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Writer, critic
Alma mater	Brandeis University
Genre	Essay, biography

Thurman is a staff writer for The New Yorker.^[6]

Early life

In 1967, Thurman graduated from Brandeis University with a bachelor's degree.^[1][7]

Early work

Thurman began her literary career as a poet and translator. The Covent Garden Press in London published her first book of poems, Putting My Coat On, in 1972.^[8] 

In the 1970s, Atheneum Books published I Became Alone, a book of essays on women poets for young people,^[9] and a volume of poetry for children, Flashlight, which has been regularly anthologized for more than forty years.^[10]

In 1973, Thurman returned to New York after five years in Europe and began to contribute to the newly launched Ms. magazine.^[2] Her essays introduced relatively unknown women writers to a new audience. They included the French poet Louise Labé and the Mexican poet Juana Inés de la Cruz. Thurman's translations of their work appeared in the Penguin Book of Women Poets.^[2] She also wrote about Gertrude Stein, Jean Rhys, Caryl Churchill, and Isak Dinesen,^[11] among others. Thurman worked at Brooklyn College as an adjunct professor from 1973 to 1975.^[12] For the remainder of the 1970s, Thurman had three publications while writing a biography.^[13]

Writing career

Biographies

In the mid-1970s, Thurman began writing a biography on Isak Dinesen after being convinced by a representative from St. Martin's Press. During her eight year writing process, Thurman stopped writing her biography after experiencing writer's block and anxiety. After resuming her writing, Thurman's biography, Isak Dinesen: The Life of A Storyteller, was published by St. Martin's Press in 1982.^[14][15] It won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, in 1983,^[16] and served as the basis for Sydney Pollack's 1985 film Out of Africa, on which Thurman served as an Associate Producer.^[17]

Thurman took leave to write a biography titled Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette, which was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1999.^[18] The book was noted as "effective at setting the morally subversive Colette in the social milieu of early-20th-century Paris."^[19] The biography won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for biography and the Salon Book Award for biography.^[20][21][22]

The New Yorker

In 1987, Thurman began contributing to The New Yorker.^[6] In 2000, she returned to The New Yorker as a staff writer, where she specialized in cultural criticism for over 20 years. A collection of her essays for the magazine, Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2007,^[23] and was a New York Times Best Book of the Year. Swann Song was published in The Best American Essays of 2003.

Other remarkable The New Yorker^[24] articles include: Exposure Time (2003),^[25] The Roving Eye (2008),^[26] First Impressions (2008),^[27] Drawn from Life (2012),^[28] and The Supreme Contradictions of Simone Weil (2024).^[29]

Thurman is a recipient of the Harold G. Vursell Award for prose style from the American Academy of Arts and Letters;^[30] the Order of Arts and Letters, from the French government;^[5] and the Rungstedlund Award from the Karen Blixen Museum.^[31]

Prizes

Won

• The National Book Award for Nonfiction, 1983 ^[32]
• The Salon Book Award for Biography, 1999^[33]
• Los Angeles Times Book awards for Biography, 1999^[34]
• The Harold G. Vursell Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for Prose Style^[35]
• Bard College's Mary McCarthy Prize for a Woman Writer's Life Work
• The Rungstedlund Prize from the Royal Danish Academy
• Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres^[36]
• The 2022 PEN Diamonsntein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay^[37]

Finalist

• Pulitzer Prize, 1999
• National Book Award, 1999

Bibliography

Poetry

• Putting My Coat On. London: Covent Garden Press. 1972.

Biographies

• Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller (1983)
• Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette (1999)

Essay collections

• Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2007. ^[a][b]
• A Left-Handed Woman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2022. ^[c][d][e][f]

Essays and reporting

• Swann Song, 2002^[38]
• The Roving Eye, 2008^[39]
• "Counterfeit Roth". The Talk of the Town. Ink. The New Yorker. 86 (8): 22–23. April 5, 2010.
• "Roth on Trump". The Talk of the Town. What-If Dept. The New Yorker. 92 (47): 18–19. January 30, 2017.^[g]
• "An unfinished woman: the desires of Margaret Fuller". The Critics. Books. April 1, 2013. The New Yorker. 96 (21): 54–59. July 27, 2020.^[h]
• "Asylum seeker: seven centuries after Dante's death, are we finally ready for Dante?". The Critics. A Critic at Large. The New Yorker. 97 (29): 72–77. September 20, 2021.^[i]
• "How Emily Wilson Made Homer Modern". The New Yorker. 11 September 2023. ISSN 0028-792X.

Reviews

• The New York Review, Writing the Furies.^[40]
• The New York Times, Fluent in the Language of Style^[41]
• The New York Times, Lost Women^[42]
• London Review of books, Yes You, Sweetheart^[43]
• The New York Times, So Saucy, in Her Life and Her Work^[44]
• The New York Times, A Tale of Destiny^[45]
• The New York Review, The Eight Gothic Tale ^[46]

———————

Notes

1. "Cleopatra's Nose by Judith Thurman, PopMatters". PopMatters. 2009-01-29. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
2. Harrison, Kathryn (2007-11-11). "Lost Women". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
3. Hoby, Hermione (2022-12-06). "Her Writing Is Gorgeous. But It Isn't Always Enough". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
4. Arrowsmith, Charles (2022-11-29). "From Amelia Earhart to Miuccia Prada, a new book collects history's 'left-handed women'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
5. McAlpin, Heller (2022-12-16). "'A Left-Handed Woman' Review: In Every Stitch a Story". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
6. "Unfailing Empathy: A Review of A Left-Handed Woman by Judith Thurman | Newcity Lit". 2022-12-05. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
7. Online version is titled "Philip Roth e-mails on Trump".
8. Online version is titled "The desires of Margaret Fuller"; first published in the April 1, 2013 issue.
9. Online version is titled "Reading Dante's Purgatory while the world hangs in the balance".

References

1. "Thurman, Judith, 1946-". Library of Congress. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
2. "Thurman, Judith". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
3. "Judith Thurman". New York Review Books. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
4. "Judith Thurman". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
5. "Judith Thurman To Receive The Medal Of Chevalier Of The Order Of Arts And Letters". Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
6. "Judith Thurman". The New Yorker. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
7. Holtze, Sally Holmes, ed. (1989). "Judith Thurman". Sixth Book of Junior Authors & Illustrators. New York: H.W. Wilson Company. p. 296. ISBN 0824207777. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
8. Thurman, Judith (1972). Putting My Coat On. London: Covent Garden Press. ISBN 0-902843-38-9. OCLC 696510.
9. Thurman, Judith (1975). I became alone : five women poets, Sappho, Louise Labé, Ann Bradstreet, Juana Ines de la Cruz, Emily Dickinson. McCrea, James,, McCrea, Ruth (1st ed.). New York: Atheneum. ISBN 0-689-30487-0. OCLC 1322798.
10. Thurman, Judith (1977). Flashlight, and other poems. Harmondsworth: Kestrel Books. ISBN 0-7226-5411-1. OCLC 16365516.
11. Thurman, Judith (1982). Isak Dinesen: The life of a storyteller. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-90202-6. OCLC 12876897.
12. Commire, Anne, ed. (1983). "Thurman, Judith 1946—". Something About the Author. Vol. 33. Detroit: Gale Research Company. p. 217. ISBN 0810300613. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
13. Evory, Ann, ed. (1981). "Thurman, Judith 1946—". Contemporary Authors. New Revision. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale Research Company. p. 659. ISBN 0810319306. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
14. O'Brien, Maureen J. (26 May 1983). "Aglow With the Dinesen Biography". Los Angeles Times. Part V p. 30.
15. Hall, Melissa Mia (November 7, 1982). "If the devil made her do it...". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. p. 6D.
16. "Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
17. Canby, Vincent (December 18, 1985). "Screen: 'Out of Africa,' Starring Meryl Streep". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 10, 2020.
18. Thurman, Judith (1999). Secrets of the flesh: A life of Colette. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-58872-X. OCLC 40783931.
19. "Nonfiction Book Review: Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman, Author Alfred A. Knopf $30 (624p) ISBN 978-0-394-58872-8". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2022-01-24.
20. "Judith Thurman". Key West Literary Seminar. Retrieved 2022-01-24.
21. "Los Angeles Times Book Prize". web.mnstate.edu. Retrieved 2020-04-10.
22. "Salon Book Award | Book awards | LibraryThing". librarything.com. Retrieved 2020-04-10.
23. Thurman, Judith (2008) [2007]. Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire (1st Picador ed.). New York: Picador. ISBN 978-0-312-42775-7. OCLC 216941679.
24. "The New Yorker", Wikipedia, 2024-12-07, retrieved 2024-12-12
25. Thurman, Judith (2003-10-05). "Exposure Time". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
26. Thurman, Judith (2008-01-13). "The Vogue Model Turned War Photographer". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
27. Thurman, Judith (2008-06-16). "What Does the World's Oldest Art Say About Us?". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
28. Thurman, Judith (2012-04-16). "Drawn from Life". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
29. Thurman, Judith (2024-09-02). "The Supreme Contradictions of Simone Weil". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
30. "Awards – American Academy of Arts and Letters". Retrieved 2020-04-10.
31. "The Rungstedlund Foundation, Karen Blixen Museum (Isak Dinesen)". KAREN BLIXEN MUSEET. Retrieved 2020-04-10.
32. "National Book Awards 1983". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
33. "Salon Book Awards News and Articles | Salon.com". www.salon.com. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
34. awardsarchive_e47t1f (2020-03-25). "1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize - Biography Winner and Nominees". Awards Archive. Retrieved 2024-12-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
35. "All Awards". American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
36. "Judith Thurman To Receive The Medal Of Chevalier Of The Order Of Arts And Letters". French Culture. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
37. "PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay". PEN America. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
38. Thurman, Judith (2002-03-10). "Swann Song". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
39. Thurman, Judith (2008-01-13). "The Vogue Model Turned War Photographer". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
40. Schiff, Stacy (2022-12-22). "Writing the Furies". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 69, no. 20. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
41. Garelick, Rhonda (December 14, 2022). "The New York Times".
42. "Lost Women (Published 2007)". 2007-11-11. Archived from the original on 2023-12-27. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
43. Castle, Terry (2000-03-16). "Yes You, Sweetheart". London Review of Books. Vol. 22, no. 06. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
44. "So Saucy, in Her Life and Her Work (Published 1999)". 1999-11-03. Archived from the original on 2023-12-30. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
45. "NYTimes". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
46. Kramer, Jane (1986-07-17). "The Eighth Gothic Tale". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 33, no. 12. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved 2024-12-12.

External links

• Media related to Judith Thurman at Wikimedia Commons