Alison Lurie is the author of ten novels, including Foreign Affairs (Pulitzer Prize, 1985), The Truth About Lorin Jones (Prix Femina Etranger, 1989), and The Last Resort. Ms Lurie has also published Women and Ghosts, a collection of supernatural stories; Familiar Spirits, a memoir of the poet James Merrill; and The Language of Clothes, a study of the psychology of fashion. She has written two collections of essays on children's literature, Tell the Grown-ups and Boys and Girls Forever, and three books of traditional folktales for children.
Three of Alison Lurie's novels - Foreign Affairs, The War Between the Tates and Imaginary Friends - have been adapted for television. She has received Guggenheim and Rockerfeller Foundation grants, and the Amercian Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Fiction.
Alison Lurie was until recently the Frederic J. Whiton Porfessor of American Literature at Cornell University. She is now retired and she spends part of the summer in London and most of the winter in Key West, Florida.