Writer's Reading Francine Prose

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is one of the most beloved and best-selling books of all time. Rereading it as an adult, award-winning author Francine Prose (Goldengrove, Reading Like a Writer) was inspired to explore the life of Anne Frank, the lasting impact of the book, and the backstory of how the deceptively simple volume came to be a world-wide phenomenon.

"How astonishing that a teenager could have written so intelligently and so movingly about a subject that continues to overwhelm the adult imagination," Prose writes in Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife. Prose's thoughtful book (released on September 29 by HarperCollins), which she reads from tonight, is sure to give readers new insight into a literary treasure and its enduring legacy. Prose signs books after the program.

Cosponsored by Ohio State's Creative Writing Program and Melton Center for Jewish Studies and by Hillel Jewish Student Center.

Keep reading for more about Prose and her work. Francine Prose is the author of 15 books of fiction, most recently the highly acclaimed Goldengrove. Her previous novel, A Changed Man, won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent work of nonfiction, Reading Like a Writer, was a New York Times bestseller. Prose has also written several books for children and young adults. Her stories, reviews, and essays have appeared in numerous publications including Atlantic Monthly, Best American Short Stories, the New Yorker, the New York Times, Art News, and the New Republic.

A former president of PEN American Center, and a contributing editor to Harper's Magazine and Bomb, Prose has been the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, a 1989 Fulbright fellowship to the former Yugoslavia, two NEA grants, and a PEN translation prize. She has taught widely, including at Harvard, Sarah Lawrence, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. A film of her novel Household Saints was released in 1993. She lives in New York City.