Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
Lily Prior is a British novelist whose works are often "set in a lush, rural Italian landscape where women have scents that set the hillsides a-tingle and food has supernatural properties," as New York Times Book Review critic Liesl Schillinger noted. She is the author of La Cucina, Nectar, Ardour and Cabaret. Prior's books have been translated into French, Dutch, German, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish, among other languages. She divides her time between London and Italy.
Lily Prior's website
This bio was last updated on 10/17/2015. 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 So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date or inaccurate, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors: If you wish to make changes to your bio, send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.
A Conversation with Lily Prior
How would you summarize La Cucina?
A delicious tale of risotto and rumpy-pumpy.
Describe your travels in Italy and how they related to the inspiration
for and creation of this book.
I knew from the very beginning that Sicily would be the setting for La
Cucin a larger-than-life backdrop for my larger-than-life heroine, Rosa Fiore.
This magical island has all the ingredients I needed: Mediterranean sun, light,
color and culture: intense heat inspiring intense passions; a culinary tradition
that exalts the concentrated flavors of the island's food; an air of mystery and
melancholy; the fascination of the mafia; the dark, deserted alleyways of
downtown Palermo; the danger and disappearances; the crumbling palazzi, the
quirky characters; curiosities like the miles of expensive autostrada on stilts
that lead precisely nowhere, and of course, the volcano; I like volcanoes.
What ideas came first in the process of writing this novel? Did you
conceive of the setting, the plot, or a particular character first?
What came first were the very clear ideas of the central characters, Rosa
and l'Inglese. Their shared passion for food was what led to their extraordinary
love affair, so the...
Diana Abu-Jaber is the author of several novels, including Arabian Jazz, Crescent, and Birds of Paradise. Crescent was awarded the 2004 PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction and the Before Columbus Foundation's American ... (more)
Erica Bauermeister is the author of The School of Essential Ingredients (Jan 2009), a novel about eight students and their cooking teacher set in a restaurant kitchen. Her non-fiction work includes 500 Great Books by Women: A... (more)
If you enjoyed:
La Cucina
Try:
The School of Essential Ingredients
by Erica Bauermeister
We recommend 5 similar authors
Become a Member and discover books that entertain, engage & enlighten!
Books are the carriers of civilization
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
The Necklace
by Claire McMillan
For readers of The Nest, the intelligent, intoxicating story of long-simmering family secrets.
Reader Reviews
A funny and acutely perceptive debut about four siblings and the fate of their shared inheritance.
About the bookVisitors can view some of BookBrowse for free. Full access is for members only.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends books that we believe to be best in class. Books that will whisk you to faraway places and times, that will expand your mind and challenge you -- the kinds of books you just can't wait to tell your friends about.
Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info & giveaways by email.
