Paulina Bren

Bren was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia. In 1968, the Soviet-Warsaw Pact Army invaded Czechoslovakia, bringing an end to the Prague Spring, and her family managed to leave for the United Kingdom just weeks before the borders closed shut.{{Cite web |last=Willoughby |first=Ian |date=2019-01-07 |title=Paulina Bren: There was a large spectrum of collaboration during normalisation – just to function, you had to be somewhere on it |url=https://english.radio.cz/paulina-bren-there-was-a-large-spectrum-collaboration-during-normalisation-just-8141854 |access-date=2023-03-20 |website=Czech Radio}} Growing up in Watford, outside of London, Bren attended the Watford Grammar School for Girls and the Northwood College for Girls.{{Cite web |title=Homepage |url=https://www.northwoodcollege.gdst.net/ |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Northwood College for Girls |language=en-US}}

Her family later moved to the United States, where Bren attended Garden City High School in New York, and then Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She majored in the College of Letters Program, graduating in 1987 with honors, and winning the Horgan Prize for short fiction.{{Cite web |last=Aberbach |first=Katie |date=2021-03-08 |title=Digging Into a Landmark of Women's History: An Interview with Paulina Bren '87 |url=http://magazine.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2021/03/08/digging-into-a-landmark-of-womens-history-an-interview-with-paulina-bren-87/ |access-date=2023-03-20 |website=Wesleyan University Magazine}} She later pursued an M.A. in International and East European Studies, as a Jackson Fellow, at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, and then a Ph.D. in European History at New York University, as a MacCracken Fellow, studying with the late historian Tony Judt.

She is Adjunct Professor at Vassar College.{{Cite web |title=Paulina Bren {{!}} Vassar College |url=https://www.vassar.edu/faculty/pabren |access-date=2024-10-20 |website=www.vassar.edu}}

Her first book,The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring (Cornell University Press, 2010), is a history of everyday life in the two decades after the Soviet invasion. The book cast one of the first lines in what would become a new field of study about late communism, winning the 2012 Council for European Studies Book Prize,{{Cite web |title=Past Book Award Winners – Council for European Studies |url=https://councilforeuropeanstudies.org/grants-awards-fellowships/book-award/past-awardees/ |access-date=2023-03-20 |language=en-US}} the 2012 Austrian Studies Association Book Prize,{{Cite web |title=CAS Book & Dissertation Prizes |url=https://cla.umn.edu/austrian/awards-opportunities/faculty-and-scholars/cas-book-dissertation-prizes |access-date=2023-03-20 |website=University of Minnesota}} and short-listed for the 2011 Wayne S. Vucinich Prize.{{Cite web |title=2011 WAYNE S. VUCINICH BOOK PRIZE |url=https://www.aseees.org/programs/aseees-prizes/wayne-s-vucinich-book-prize/past-winners-aseees-vucinich-book-prize/2011 |access-date=2023-03-20 |website=ASEEES}} Her next book, Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe (Oxford University Press, 2012), is a collection of edited essays with Mary Neuburger of the University of Texas, Austin.{{Cite book |url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/communism-unwrapped-9780199827671?cc=us&lang=en& |title=Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe |date=2012-09-06 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-982767-1 |location=Oxford, New York}}

Her first commercial non-fiction book,The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free, is about the famous women’s hotel on 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City. It was published in 2021 by Simon & Schuster in the U.S.{{Cite book |url=https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Barbizon/Paulina-Bren/9781982123901 |title=The Barbizon |date=2022-03-15 |isbn=978-1-9821-2390-1 |language=en}} and by Two Roads/Hachette in the U.K.{{Cite web |date=2019-12-19 |title=Paulina Bren |url=https://www.tworoadsbooks.com/contributor/paulina-bren/ |access-date=2023-03-20 |website=Hachette UK |language=en-US}} It has been translated into Spanish, Italian,{{Cite web |title=Barbizon Hotel |url=https://neripozza.it/libri/http%3A//neripozza.cms.fornace.io/libri/barbizon-hotel |access-date=2023-03-20 |website=neripozza.it |language=it-IT}} and Russian, with foreign rights also sold to South Korea, China, and Hungary. Bren weaves the history of the hotel from its opening in the 1920s to its conversion to luxury condominiums in the 2000s to tell the story of its residents, of New York City, and of female ambition in 20th century America. The Barbizon was a New York Times Editor’s Choice,{{Cite news |date=2021-04-08 |title=11 New Books We Recommend This Week |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/books/review/11-new-books-we-recommend-this-week.html |access-date=2023-03-20 |issn=0362-4331}} and was reviewed in The New Yorker,{{Cite magazine |date=2021-02-26 |title=When the Barbizon Gave Women Rooms of Their Own |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/08/when-the-barbizon-gave-women-rooms-of-their-own |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |access-date=2023-03-20}} the New York Times,{{Cite news |last=Donegan |first=Moira |date=2021-03-02 |title=Some of America's Most Ambitious Women Slept Here |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/books/review/the-barbizon-paulina-bren.html |access-date=2023-03-20 |issn=0362-4331}} the Wall Street Journal,{{Cite web |last=McAlpin |first=Heller |title='The Barbizon' Review: Landmark and Launching Pad |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-barbizon-review-landmark-and-launching-pad-11614352181 |access-date=2023-03-20 |website=WSJ |language=en-US}} the Washington Post,{{Cite news |last=Murphy |first=Mary Jo |date=2021-03-26 |title=The hotel that nurtured ambitious women and their New York dreams |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-hotel-that-nurtured-ambitious-women-and-their-new-york-dreams/2021/03/24/2bedc43a-8007-11eb-ac37-4383f7709abe_story.html |access-date=2023-03-20}} The Guardian,{{Cite web |title=Lifestyle {{!}} The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/mar/14/waking-up-to-new-york-secrets-of-the-worlds-most-%20famous-women-only-hotel |access-date=2023-03-20 |website=the Guardian |language=en}} The Times,{{Cite news |last=Goodwin |first=Daisy |title=The Barbizon by Paulina Bren, review — the former home of Sylvia Plath and Grace Kelly |language=en |newspaper=The Times |url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/the-barbizon-by-paulina-bren-review-the-former-home-of-sylvia-plath-and-grace-kelly-7bch3xx6p |access-date=2023-03-20 |issn=0140-0460}} and elsewhere.{{Cite web |title=Paulina Bren |url=https://www.paulinabren.com/ |access-date=2023-03-20 |website=Paulina Bren |language=en-US}}The Barbizon has been optioned for television by Rose Byrne and Lionsgate Studios.

In 2024, she published She-Wolves, a book about women and Wall Street in the 1970s and 1980s.{{cite web |last=Kolhatkar |first=Sheelah |date=2024-09-16 |title=Book Review: ‘She-Wolves,’ by Paulina Bren |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/books/review/she-wolves-paulina-bren.html |access-date=2024-10-20 |website=The New York Times}}{{cite web |last=Lange |first=Maggie |date=2024-09-16 |title=How women broke into the boys club of Wall Street |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/09/16/she-wolves-women-finance-bren-review/ |access-date=2024-10-20 |website=Washington Post}}{{Cite web |last=Rosas |first=David Brancaccio, Ariana |date=2024-09-12 |title=How trailblazing women fought for a place on Wall Street |url=https://www.marketplace.org/2024/09/12/how-trailblazing-women-fought-for-a-place-on-wall-street/ |access-date=2024-10-20 |website=Marketplace |language=en-US}} It has been optioned for television by eOne Entertainment.

• {{cite book |title=The Greengrocer and His TV |date=2010 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-4767-9 |publication-place=Ithaca, [N.Y.] |oclc=475444326}}
• The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free, {{ISBN|978-1-9821-2390-1}}
• {{cite book |title=She-Wolves |date=2024-09-17 |isbn=978-1-324-03515-2}} {{cite web |last=Kolhatkar |first=Sheelah |date=2024-09-16 |title=Book Review: ‘She-Wolves,’ by Paulina Bren |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/books/review/she-wolves-paulina-bren.html |access-date=2024-11-13 |website=The New York Times}}{{cite web |last=Lange |first=Maggie |date=2024-09-16 |title=How women broke into the boys club of Wall Street |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/09/16/she-wolves-women-finance-bren-review/ |access-date=2024-11-13 |website=Washington Post}}{{Cite web |last=Rosas |first=David Brancaccio, Ariana |date=2024-09-12 |title=How trailblazing women fought for a place on Wall Street |url=https://www.marketplace.org/2024/09/12/how-trailblazing-women-fought-for-a-place-on-wall-street/ |access-date=2024-11-13 |website=Marketplace |language=en-US}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{official website|https://www.paulinabren.com/books}}
• [https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3372254.Paulina_Bren Paulina Bren] on Goodreads

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Category:Vassar College faculty

Category:Wesleyan University alumni

Category:1966 births

Category:Living people

Category:Writers from Brno