Paula Fox

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Paula Fox
Born April 22, 1923 (1923-04-22) (age 88)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality USA
Genres novel, memoir
Notable work(s) The Slave Dancer, Desperate Characters, Borrowed Finery
Notable award(s) Newbery Medal; Hans Christian Andersen Medal
Spouse(s) 1940 Howard Bird, divorced; '48 Richard Sigerson (two sons), divorced; '62 Martin Greenberg.
Children Linda Carroll
Relative(s) Elsie Fox; Courtney Love

Paula Fox (born April 22, 1923) is an American author of novels for adults and children and two memoirs. Her novel The Slave Dancer (1973) received the Newbery Medal in 1974; and in 1978, she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. More recently, A Portrait of Ivan won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2008.

Her adult novels went out of print in 1992. In the mid nineties she enjoyed a revival as her adult fiction was championed by a new generation of American writers.[1]

Contents

[edit] Life

Paula Fox was born in New York, New York on April 22, 1923. Her father, Paul Hervey Fox, wrote screenplays and was often drunk. Her Cuban-born mother, Elsie De Sola Fox, rejected her at birth and left her in a foundling home in New York City. Her maternal grandmother, temporarily visiting the United States, rescued her. Unable at the time to provide a home herself, the Cuban abuela gave her to Reverend Elwood Corning (fondly called Uncle Elwood) and his bedridden mother in Balmville, New York.[2] The Reverend treated her kindly, teaching her important things along the way. Fox first visited her parents house at the age of 3 where her mother treated her like a prisoner in war. The reunion was so traumatic that in her memoir Borrowed Finery she wrote, "I sensed that if she could have hidden the act she would have killed me."

A teenage marriage produced a daughter, Linda, in 1944. However, given the tumultuous relationship with her own biological parents, she gave the child up for adoption. Fox later attended Columbia University, married the literary critic and translator Martin Greenberg, raised two sons, taught, and began to write.

The daughter Fox gave up for adoption, Linda Carroll, is the mother of the musician Courtney Love.

[edit] Works

[edit] Adult Fiction

  • 1967 Poor George
  • 1970 Desperate Characters
  • 1972 The Western Coast
  • 1976 The Widow’s Children
  • 1984 A Servant’s Tale
  • 1990 The God of Nightmares
  • 2011 News from the World: Stories and Essays

[edit] Children's Fiction

  • 1966 Maurice's Room (pictures by Ingrid Fetz)
  • 1967 How Many Miles to Babylon? (illustrated by Paul Giovanopoulos)
  • 1967 A Likely Place (illustrated by Edward Ardizzone)
  • 1968 Dear Prosper (illustrated by Steve McLachlin)
  • 1968 The Stone-Faced Boy (illustrated by Donald A. Mackay)
  • 1969 Hungry Fred (illustrated by Rosemary Wells)
  • 1969 The King's Falcon (illustrated by Eros Keith)
  • 1969 Portrait of Ivan (illustrated by Saul Lambert)
  • 1970 Blowfish Live in the Sea — NBA finalist[a]
  • 1973 Good Ethan (illustrated by Arnold Lobel)
  • 1974 The Slave Dancer (illustrated by Eros Keith)
  • 1978 The Little Swineherd and Other Tales (1996 edition illustrated by Robert Byrd) — NBA finalist[a]
  • 1980 A Place Apart
  • 1984 One-Eyed Cat
  • 1986 The Moonlight Man ISBN 0-02-735480-6
  • 1987 Lily and the Lost Boy (also published as The Lost Boy) ISBN 0-531-08320-9
  • 1988 The Village by the Sea (also published as In a Place of Darkness)
  • 1991 Monkey Island
  • 1993 Western Wind
  • 1995 The Eagle Kite (also published as The Gathering Darkness)
  • 1997 Radiance Descending
  • 1999 Amzat and His Brothers: Three Italian Tales

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Blowfish Live in the Sea and The Little Swineherd were finalists for the National Book Award, Children's Literature.
    "National Book Awards – 1970". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-02-08. (Select 1971 and 1979 from the top left menu.)

[edit] Memoirs

  • 2001 Borrowed Finery
  • 2005 The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe

[edit] See also

Portal icon Literature portal

[edit] References

  1. ^ Edemariam, Aida (21 June 2003). "A qualified optimist". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/jun/21/featuresreviews.guardianreview7. Retrieved 23 June 2011. 
  2. ^ http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/890537-312/paula_fox_on_a_roll.html.csp

[edit] External links
Authors: Eleanor Farjeon (1956) • Astrid Lindgren (1958) • Erich Kästner (1960) • Meindert DeJong (1962) • René Guillot (1964) • Tove Jansson (1966) • James Krüss and José Maria Sanchez-Silva (1968) • Gianni Rodari (1970) • Scott O'Dell (1972) • Maria Gripe (1974) • Cecil Bødker (1976) • Paula Fox (1978) • Bohumil Říha (1980) • Lygia Bojunga Nunes (1982) • Christine Nöstlinger (1984) • Patricia Wrightson (1986) • Annie M. G. Schmidt (1988) • Tormod Haugen (1990) • Virginia Hamilton (1992) • Michio Mado (1994) • Uri Orlev (1996) • Katherine Paterson (1998) • Ana Maria Machado (2000) • Aidan Chambers (2002) • Martin Waddell (2004) • Margaret Mahy (2006) • Jürg Schubiger (2008) • David Almond (2010)
Illustrators: Alois Carigiet (1966) • Jiří Trnka (1968) • Maurice Sendak (1970) • Ib Spang Olsen (1972) • Farshid Mesghali (1974) • Tatyana Mavrina (1976) • Svend Otto S. (1978) • Suekichi Akaba (1980) • Zbigniew Rychlicki (1982) • Mitsumasa Anno (1984) • Robert Ingpen (1986) • Dusan Kállay (1988) • Lisbeth Zwerger (1990) • Kveta Pacovská (1992) • Jörg Müller (1994) • Klaus Ensikat (1996) • Tomi Ungerer (1998) • Anthony Browne (2000) • Quentin Blake (2002) • Max Velthuijs (2004) • Wolf Erlbruch (2006) • Roberto Innocenti (2008) • Jutta Bauer (2010)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paula_Fox&oldid=475806357"
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