Paula Fox

Paula Fox
Born (1923-04-22) April 22, 1923 (age 89)
New York City, New York
Nationality American
Period 1966–1999 (children's lit.)
Genres Children's literature, Novel, Memoir
Notable work(s) Desperate Characters
The Slave Dancer
Borrowed Finery (memoir)
Notable award(s)
Spouse(s)
  • Howard Bird (1940), divorced
  • Richard Sigerson (1948), div.
  • Martin Greenberg (1962)
Children 2 sons by Sigerson[a]
Relative(s)

Paula Fox (born April 22, 1923) is an American author of novels for adults and children and two memoirs. She won multiple awards for her children's books: the 1974 Newbery Medal for her novel The Slave Dancer; a 1983 National Book Award in category Children's Fiction (paperback) for A Place Apart;[1] the 2008 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for A Portrait of Ivan (1969); and the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Medal for "lasting contribution" in 1978.

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.[2]

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. Her maternal grandmother, temporarily visiting New York City, rescued her. Unable at the time to provide a home herself, the Cuban grandmother gave the infant to Reverend Elwood Corning (fondly called Uncle Elwood) and his bedridden mother in Balmville, New York.[3] The Reverend treated Paula kindly, teaching her important things along the way. Fox first visited her parents at the age of five, when her mother treated her like a prisoner in war. The reunion was so traumatic, she wrote in her memoir Borrowed Finery, "I sensed that if she could have hidden the act she would have killed me."[4]

A teenage marriage to Howard Bird produced a daughter, Linda, in 1944.[a] 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, had two sons, and worked for years as a teacher and as a tutor for troubled children. Only in her 40s did she begin her first novel, Poor George, about a cynical school teacher who finds purpose—and ruin—in mentoring a vagrant teenager.[5] The novel was received well (Bernard Bergonzi in the New York Review of Books calling it "the best novel I've read in a long time") but sold poorly, a pattern that all her adult novels would follow. Desperate Characters, an acknowledged masterpiece, came next with Alfred Kazin calling it a "brilliant performance" and "quite devastating" while Lionel Trilling described it as "a reserved and beautifully realized novel". By 1992 all six of her novels were out of print.[4]

Works

Adult Fiction

Children's Fiction

Memoirs

See also

Portal icon Literature portal

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Fox is also the birth mother of Linda Carroll (b. 1944), who was adopted by an Italian Catholic family. In turn, Carroll is the mother of Courtney Love.
    "MOTHERS & DAUGHTERS: Courtney Love's mom, Linda Carroll, reflects on her daughter and her own birth mother", Neva Chronin, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, February 5, 2006. Retrieved 2012-02-27.
  2. ^ 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.)

References

  1. ^ "National Book Awards – 1983". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-02-27.
  2. ^ 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. 
  3. ^ "Paula Fox on a Roll", Rocco Staino, School Library Journal May 12, 2011.
  4. ^ a b Acocella, Joan (16 May 2011). "From Bad Beginnings". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2011/05/16/110516crbo_books_acocella. Retrieved 1 March 2012. 
  5. ^ Italie, Hillel. "Paula Fox looks back on a wayward life". newsvine.com. http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/05/05/6589368-paula-fox-looks-back-on-a-wayward-life. Retrieved 6 March 2012. 

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)