Called “the finest British writer alive” by the Los Angeles Times and “the mistress of the hint of the sublime” by the New York Times, Penelope Fitzgerald (1916–2000) began publishing at the age of 58 and produced nine novels and three biographies by the time of her death at 83. Her third novel, Offshore, won the Booker Prize in 1979, while her final novel, The Blue Flower, was named Book of the Year by nineteen British newspapers in 1995 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1997.
Please join Hermione Lee, the acclaimed biographer of Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf, and award-winning novelists Ellis Avery, Alexander Chee, and Margot Livesey in celebrating the life and writing of Penelope Fitzgerald at an event that showcases Lee’s masterful new biography, Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life (Knopf, 2014). Avery, Livesey, and Chee will also read and discuss their favorite selections from Fitzgerald’s work.
Event is free and open to the public. Seating is first come, first served.
This event is co-sponsored by the Heyman Center for the Humanities and the Writing Program of the School of the Arts, Columbia University.