Grace Paley: A Life

FAIN: FZ-287362-22

Avi Steinberg
Unaffiliated independent scholar

Research and writing of a biography of Jewish-American author, teacher, and political activist Grace Paley (1922 – 2007).

The first complete biography of Grace Paley, a critical figure in mid-century American and Jewish-American literature, in the feminist movement, and in the intersections between these streams. “There’s a case to be made,” wrote New Yorker critic, Alexandra Schwartz, “that Grace Paley was first and foremost an antinuclear, antiwar, antiracist feminist activist who managed, in her spare time, to become one of the truly original voices of American fiction in the twentieth century.” Drawing on exclusive access to Paley’s own archive, on unpublished material from scores of archives, on hundreds of original interviews, on the latest scholarship, and on a thorough investigative effort, this biography is the first comprehensive survey of the material record, and the most complete account of one of the country’s most important feminist literary artists. The book is under contract with Farrar, Straus and Giroux.