Occupation Author Role Author Name Marianne Wiggins | Genre novels Nationality American Children Lara Wiggins | |
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Notable works Separate Checks (1984)John Dollar (1989)Evidence of Things Unseen (2003) Notable awards Whiting AwardNEA AwardJanet Heidinger Kafka Prize Nominations National Book Award for Fiction, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction Books The Shadow Catcher, Evidence of Things Unseen, John Dollar, Eveless Eden, Almost Heaven | ||
Meet Marianne Wiggins
Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins
Marianne Wiggins (born September 8, 1947) is an American author. She is noted for the unusual characters and storylines in her novels. According to The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, Wiggins writes with "a bold intelligence and an ear for hidden comedy." She has won a Whiting Award, an NEA award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2004 for her novel Evidence of Things Unseen.
Contents
- Meet Marianne Wiggins
- Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins
- Early life
- Career
- Personal life
- Awards and honors
- References
Early life
Wiggins was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her family was of Greek and Scots ancestry. Her father, a farmer, preached in a conservative Christian church founded by her grandfather. She married at 17, just after graduating from Manheim Township High School, and gave birth to a daughter, Lara, whom she raised in Martha's Vineyard. Lara is now a renowned photographer in Los Angeles.
Career
“I have lived a really interesting life,” she told Pamela J. Johnson in July 2006. “I haven’t lived it so I can excavate material for my writing.” She added, “I’m a novelist. I don’t have those muscles. It’s not about me. It’s about what I’ve imagined. It’s the universal voice that I want to move forward. That’s my natural voice.”
Personal life
Wiggins lived in London for 16 years, and for brief periods in Paris, Brussels and Rome.
In January 1988, she married the novelist Salman Rushdie in London. On February 14, 1989—Valentine's Day—the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a Fatwa ordering Rushdie's assassination for alleged blasphemy in his book, The Satanic Verses. Although Wiggins had told Rushdie only five days prior that she wished to end their marriage, she nevertheless went into hiding along with him. In 1993, the two divorced.
Wiggins currently lives in Los Angeles, California, where she has been in the English department of the University of Southern California since 2005.