Joan Didion
A keen observer of politics and culture, Joan Didion has been a prolific essayist, journalist, novelist and screenwriter for four decades. Her unflinching prose has exposed and defined contemporary American life. Even when her own story took unexpected turns, including the loss of both daughter and husband within two years, Didion, the relentless examiner, kept probing to get at the truth about intimacy, death and denial. The Year of Magical Thinking, winner of the 2005 National Book Award, is a personal journey through grief, a place, as she wrote, “none of us know until we reach it.”
The Washington Post called this latest feat “a work of surpassing clarity and honesty,” and critic John Leonard said, “I can’t imagine dying without this book.”
Didion is the author of eight other books of non-fiction and five novels that taken together provide a unique chronicle of modern culture. In Where I Was From (2003), she took a hard look at her native California, recounting stories of her gun-toting female ancestors, the modern-day conquests of the teen Spur Posse gang, and other tales from the West Coast.
In Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 (2003), she explored the initial widespread reluctance to openly question United States foreign policy after the terrorist attacks. In Political Fictions (2001), she analyzed the often bizarre U.S. electoral landscape, through six essays covering presidential campaigns from 1988 through 2000.
Didion’s other non-fiction books include: Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968), The White Album, (1979), Salvador (1983), Miami (1987) and After Henry (1992). Her novels include: Run River (1963), Play It as It Lays (1970), A Book of Common Prayer (1977), Democracy (1984) and The Last Thing He Wanted (1996).
She and her late husband, John Gregory Dunne, co-authored seven screenplays, including: The Panic in Needle Park (1971), Play It as It Lays (1973) and A Star Is Born (1977). Her essays have also appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and other major magazines.
Click here for more information on her upcoming Morgan Lecture.