- Hortense Calisher
Infobox Writer
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name = Hortense Calisher
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pseudonym = Jack Fenno
birthdate = birth date and age|1911|12|20
birthplace =New York City, New York ,United States
deathdate =
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occupation = Novelist
nationality = American
period = 1951 - present
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website = http://members.authorsguild.net/hcalisher/Hortense Calisher (born
December 20 ,1911 inNew York City , NY) is an American writer of fiction.Biography
A graduate of
Hunter College High School (1928) andBarnard College (1932), Calisher was the daughter of a young German immigrant and an older father from a Southern family she described as "volcanic to meditative to fruitfully dull, and bound to produce someone interested in character, society, and time" [Calisher, Hortense. "Tattoo for a Slave". Orlando: Harcourt, 2004.] .Writing style
Calisher involves her closely investigated, penetrating characters in complicated plotlines that unfold with shocks and surprises in allusive, nuanced language with a distinctively elegiac voice, sometimes compared with
Eudora Welty ,Charles Dickens ,Jane Austen , andHenry James . Critics generally consider Calisher a type of neo-realist and often both condemn and praise for her extensive explorations of characters and their social worlds. She was definitely at odds with the prevailing writing style ofminimalism that characterized fiction writing in the 1970s and 1980s and that emphasized a sparse, non-romantic style with no room forexpressionism orromanticism . As an anti-minimalist, Calisher is admired for her elliptical style in which more is hinted at than stated, and she is also praised as a social realist and critic in the vein ofHonore Balzac andEdith Wharton .Honors and awards
A past president of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters and ofPEN , the worldwide association of writers, she has been aNational Book Award finalist three times and has won anO. Henry Award (for "The Night Club in the Woods") and the 1986Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize (for "The Bobby Soxer") as well as being awardedGuggenheim Fellowships in 1952 and 1955 [ [http://www.gf.org/52fellow.html Guggenheim Memorial Foundation 1952 Fellows Page] ] . She lives in New York City.Bibliography
Fiction
*"In the Absence of Angels" (1951)
*"False Entry" (1961)
*"Tales for the Mirror" (1962)
*"Textures of Life", (1963)
*"Extreme Magic" (1964)
*"Journey from Ellipsia" (1966)
*"The Railway Police, and The Last Trolley Ride" (1966)
*"The New Yorkers" (1970)
*"Standard Dreaming" (1972)
*"Eagle Eye" (1973)
*"Queenie" (1973)
*"The Collected Stories of Hortense Calisher" (1975)
*"On Keeping Women" (1977)
*"Mysteries of Motion" (1983)
*"Saratoga Hot" (1985)
*"The Bobby-Soxer" (1986)
*"Age" (1987)
*"Kissing Cousins: A Memory" (1988)
*"The Small Bang" (under the pseudonym of Jack Fenno) (1992)
*"In the Palace of the Movie King" (1993)
*"In the Slammer with Carol Smith" (1997)
*"The Novellas of Hortense Calisher" (1997)
*"Sunday Jews" (2003)Non-fiction
*"Herself" (
autobiography , 1972)
*"Tattoo for a Slave" (memoir , 2004)References
External links
[http://members.authorsguild.net/hcalisher/ Hortense Calisher's website]
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