“The most important thing when
starting out with essay writing is to find a voice with which you're
comfortable. You need to find a persona that is very much like you, but
slightly caricatured.”
– Anne Fadiman
Born Aug. 7, 1953, Fadiman is the daughter of renowned literary,
radio, and television personality Clifton Fadimam and World War II
correspondent and author Annalee Jacoby Fadiman and has been
comfortable around celebrity since she was a child. A Radcliffe grad, she roomed with novelist
Wendy Lesser and in the same dorm with Benazir Bhutto and Kathleen Kennedy –
all great fodder for her terrific essays.
Fadiman was a
founding editor of the Library of Congress magazine Civilization,
and has had a great career as a writer, editor and teacher of essays. But it was her award-winning
book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down that brought her the most
acclaim (and many awards). Researched in a small county hospital in California,
it examines a Hmong immigrant family and their cultural, linguistic, and
medical struggles in seeking treatment for their epileptic child.
An intense reader as well as writer,
she noted that she is grateful for modern electronics and how they have
improved the lives of writers and readers alike. And while she reads e-books, she prefers a text copy in her hands.
“There is something about holding a
book - the smell and the world of association,” she said. “Even when e-books are
perfected, as they surely will be, I think it will be like being in bed with a
very well-made robot rather than a warm, soft, human being whom you love.”
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