Allegra Goodman (born 1967) is an American writer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Allegra Goodman
Born1967 (age 56–57)
New York City, U.S.
OccupationNovelist
EducationHarvard University (AB)
Stanford University (PhD)
Period1989-current
GenreLiterary fiction
SpouseDavid Karger
Children4
Website
allegragoodman.com

Early life and education

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Allegra Goodman was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Hawaii.[1] The daughter of Lenn and Madeleine Goodman,[2] she was brought up as a Conservative Jew.[3] Her mother, who died in 1996, was a professor of genetics and women's studies, then assistant vice president at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for many years, before moving on to Vanderbilt University in the 1990s.[4] Her father, Lenn E. Goodman,[4] is a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt.

Goodman wrote and illustrated her first novel at the age of seven.[5]

Goodman graduated from Punahou School in 1985. She then went on to Harvard University, where she earned an A.B. degree. She then went on to do graduate work at Stanford University, where Goodman earned a Ph.D. degree in English literature, in 1996.[2]

Writing

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Goodman's younger sister, Paula Fraenkel, is an oncologist. Fraenkel's experience in research labs is one of the inspirations for Goodman's 2006 novel Intuition.[6]

Her short story "La Vita Nuova" was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2011 and was broadcast on Public Radio International's Selected Shorts in February 2012.[7]

Personal life

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Goodman met her husband, David Karger, at Harvard. Both were regulars at Harvard Hillel, and prayed in Harvard Hillel Orthodox Minyan. Goodman and Karger live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Karger is a professor in computer science[8] at MIT. They have four children, three boys and a girl.[3]

Awards and honors

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Year Title Award Category Result Ref
1991 Whiting Award Fiction Won
1998 Kaaterskill Falls National Book Award Fiction Shortlisted
2009 Intuition Wellcome Book Prize Shortlisted
2018 "F.A.Q.s" Sunday Times Short Story Award Shortlisted

Bibliography

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Novels

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  • Kaaterskill Falls (The Dial Press 1998; paperback Dial Press Trade Paperback 1999) ISBN 0-385-32389-1, ISBN 0-385-32390-5
  • Paradise Park (The Dial Press 2001, Dial Press Trade Paperback 2002) ISBN 0-385-33416-8, ISBN 0-385-33418-4
  • Intuition (The Dial Press 2006), ISBN 0-385-33612-8
  • The Other Side of the Island (New York: Razorbill, 2008) ISBN 978-1-59514-196-5
  • The Cookbook Collector (The Dial Press 2010) ISBN 978-0-385-34085-4
  • The Chalk Artist: A Novel (The Dial Press 2017) ISBN 978-1-400-06987-3
  • Sam: A Novel (The Dial Press 2023) ISBN 978-0-593-59682-1

Short fiction

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Collections
Stories[a]
Title Year First published Reprinted/collected Notes
A challenge you have overcome 2021 Goodman, Allegra (January 25, 2021). "A challenge you have overcome". The New Yorker. 96 (45): 54–59.

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Notes
  1. ^ Short stories unless otherwise noted.

References

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  1. ^ Fried, Lewis (2007). "Allegra Goodman". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 7 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. p. 756. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
  2. ^ a b "Allegra Goodman." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Retrieved via Biography in Context database, 2017-09-22.
  3. ^ a b [1][dead link]
  4. ^ a b "Dean Goodman remembered for leadership, spirit". Vanderbilt Register. October 7–13, 1996. p. 1. Archived from the original on 2005-02-26. Retrieved 2006-06-13.
  5. ^ Donnelly, David. "Novel tale of island prodigy". Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
  6. ^ Shafner, Rhonda (April 16, 2006). "'Intuition' rings true in world of science". Archived from the original, on January 30, 2010. Associated Press, via The Honolulu Advertiser. hawaii.com. Retrieved 2017-09-22.
  7. ^ "News". Allegra Goodman's website. Archived from the original on 2013-01-17. Retrieved 2013-03-16.
  8. ^ "David R. Karger". MIT CSAIL Directory.
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