Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
Ann Patchett is the author of seven novels, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician's Assistant, Bel Canto, Run, State of Wonder, and Commonwealth. She was the editor of Best American Short Stories, 2006, and has written three books of nonfiction, Truth & Beauty, about her friendship with the writer, Lucy Grealy, What now? an expansion of her graduation address at Sarah Lawrence College, and, most recently, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a collection of essays that examines the theme of commitment.
A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Patchett has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including England's Orange Prize, PEN/Faulkner Award, the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Book Sense Book of the Year, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize, The Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, the American Bookseller's Association's "Most Engaging Author Award", and the Women's National Book Association's Award. Her books have been both New York Times Notable Books and New York Times bestsellers. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages.
In November, 2011, she opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, with Karen Hayes. She has since gone on to be a spokesperson for independent booksellers, talking about books and bookstores on "The Colbert Report," NPR, "The Martha Stewart Show" and "The CBS Early Show." Along with James Patterson she was the honorary chair of World Book Night. In 2012 she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
Ann Patchett lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband, Karl VanDevender, and their dog, Sparky.
Ann Patchett's website
This bio was last updated on 09/09/2019. We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's a tough task. So, please help us - if the information about this author is out of date or inaccurate, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and publishers: If you wish to make changes to a bio, send the complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.
What inspired you to write this novel?
Usually it's hard to pin down the exact point at which you come up
with an idea for a novel but this one is easy: December 17th, 1996, the night
that the terrorist organization Tupac Amaru took over the Japanese embassy in
Lima, Peru. I'm sure I didn't know that day that this story would turn into Bel
Canto, but I was completely focused on it from the start. It had so many
elements that were compelling to me: confinement, survival, the construction of
family. For a long time I'd wanted to find a way to experience the things I
read about in the paper, to grieve for disasters that had no immediate affect on
my life. Turning a tragedy I knew nothing about into this novel was part of that
process.
Were you an opera aficionado prior to writing Bel Canto?
I wasn't. I knew as much about opera as I did about baseball, which
is to say nothing. But once I came up with the character of Roxane Coss I threw
myself into learning about it whole-heartedly. The best thing I did was to buy a
book called Opera 101 by Fred Plotkin. It tells you how to listen and
what to listen to. It takes you through everything you need to know step by
step. It was my bible. Then I listened ...
"Berlin's new book is a marvel, filled with deeply touching stories about lives on the fringes."—NPR
About the bookThe In-Betweens
by Mira Ptacin
"A fascinating history of an American community of Spiritualists... a fabulous read."
—Elizabeth Gilbert
Reader Reviews
BUTTERFLY YELLOW
Winner of the BookBrowse Award for Best Young Adult Novel, and the overall highest rated book of the year!
Visitors can view some of BookBrowse for free. Full access is for members only.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.