Wendy Lesser
{{short description|American novelist}}
{{Infobox writer
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| image = Wendy Lesser.jpg
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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1952|3|20}}
| birth_place = Santa Monica, California, U.S.
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| education = Harvard University (BA)
King's College, Cambridge (BPhil)
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
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| genre = non-fiction
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| relatives = Millicent Dillon (mother)
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Wendy Lesser (born March 20, 1952) is an American critic, writer, and editor based in Berkeley, California."Wendy Lesser." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Retrieved via Biography in Context database, 2017-06-10. Version dated 2009 available online [http://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/lesser-wendy-1952 via Encyclopedia.com]. She is the founding editor of the arts journal The Threepenny Review, and the author of a novel and several works of nonfiction, including most recently a biography of the architect Louis Kahn, for which she won the 2017 Marfield Prize.{{Cite news|url=https://artsclubofwashington.org/news/wendy-lesser-receives-10000-marfield-prize-arts-writing/|title=Wendy Lesser Receives $10,000 Marfield Prize for Arts Writing - DC Art Events {{!}} DC Wedding Reception Venue|date=2018-04-01|work=DC Art Events {{!}} DC Wedding Reception Venue|access-date=2018-04-04|language=en-US}}
Biography
Lesser was born in 1952 in Santa Monica, California and moved in 1955 to Palo Alto, California, where she was raised.{{Cite news|url=http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/article/ZZ/20150114/NEWS/150119037|title=Threepenny Review editor Wendy Lesser looks back on 35 years of 'Table Talk'|access-date=2017-06-29|language=en}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-07-bk-14638-story.html|title=The Residue of Design|last=LINFIELD|first=SUSIE|date=1999-03-07|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=2017-06-29|language=en-US|issn=0458-3035}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/lesser_su10.html|title=Unearthly Powers|date=2010|website=Threepenny: Lesser|access-date=2017-06-29}} She is the daughter of Murray Lesser, an engineer and writer, and Millicent Dillon, a writer. She earned a B.A. at Harvard University in 1973; a B.Phil. at King's College, Cambridge, in 1975; and a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1982.
She is the author of several books, including a novel, The Pagoda in the Garden (Other Press, 2005), and the nonfiction book Why I Read (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014).
She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Dedalus Foundation, and the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, among other places.
Works
- The Life Below the Ground: A Study of the Subterranean in Literature and History (1987)
- His Other Half: Men Looking at Women Through Art Harvard University Press, 1991. {{ISBN|9780674392113}}, {{OCLC|59903884}}
- Pictures at an Execution Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1994. {{ISBN|9780674667365}}, {{OCLC|38972017}}
- A Director Calls Berkeley : University of California Press, 1997. {{ISBN|9780520212060}}, {{OCLC|611228387}}
- The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters New York : Vintage Books, 1999. {{ISBN|9780375703812}}, {{OCLC|44405154}}
- Портрет балерины (Tamara Toumanova)[http://az.lib.ru/t/tumanowa_t_w/text_16_portret_baleriny.shtml]
- Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering Boston [u.a.] : Houghton Mifflin, 2002. {{ISBN|9780618340811}}, {{OCLC|798974644}}
- The Pagoda in the Garden New York : Handsel Books, 2005. {{ISBN|9781590511763}}, {{OCLC|795582468}}
- Room for Doubt New York : Pantheon Books, 2007. {{ISBN|9780375424007}}, {{OCLC|636819815 }}
- Music for Silenced Voices: Shostakovich and His Fifteen Quartets New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, 2011. {{ISBN|9780300169331}} , {{OCLC|770869230}}
- Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books New York : Picador/Farrar, Staus and Giroux, 2014. {{ISBN|9781250062093}}, {{OCLC|898154175}}
- You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017. {{ISBN|9780374537630}}, {{OCLC|988048542}}
- Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020, {{ISBN|9780374216979}}
References
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External links
{{external media
|audio1 = [http://www.gracecavalieri.com/poetLaureates/featuredpoet_wendylesser.html Wendy Lesser], The Poet and the Poem 2017-18 Series
}}
- [http://www.otherpress.com Other Press]
- [http://www.threepennyreview.com The Threepenny Review]
- [https://www.villagevoice.com/2007/01/30/freeze-framed/ Freeze framed: Wendy Lesser's essays break emotional ice], review of Room for Doubt by Emily Weinstein at The Village Voice
- [http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=17361 Random House: Wendy Lesser]
- [http://www.films42.com/feature/august_feature.asp Films42 feature: Wendy Lesser]
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Category:Radcliffe College alumni
Category:Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni
Category:20th-century American novelists
Category:21st-century American novelists
Category:American women novelists
Category:20th-century American women writers
Category:21st-century American women writers