Discipline: Literature

Hortense Calisher

Discipline: Literature
Region: Saratoga Springs, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1966
Hortense Calisher (1911–2009) was a significant presence in American letters for more than 40 years, producing novels, short stories, and memoirs of striking originality and intelligence. Her publishing career began somewhat belatedly at the age of 37 when, while she was living in the suburbs with her first husband and two children, her early stories started to attract attention. The subject matter of Calisher’s work extends from an understanding of dynastic nineteenth-century mores to ventures in outer space and back, though much of her writing draws from her upper-bourgeois childhood in Manhattan. Among her works are The New Yorkers, The Railway Police, The Last Trolley Ride, and Textures of Life. Her Journal from Ellypsia foretold by 20 years the 1970s’ preoccupation with issues of gender. She received much critical recognition for her work, including O. Henry Awards for her stories, a National Book Award nomination, two Guggenheim Fellowships, honorary doctorates, and a National Endowment for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award (1989). Calisher spent time in Rome and London and served as president of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and of PEN, the international writers’ organization.