Literary Figures: Novelists

Novelist Frederick Forsyth. With the publication of The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War, all in the space of three years, critics dubbed Frederick Forsyth a master of the international suspense thriller. The plots of all his stories have been praised for their split-second calculations and for their attention to the mechanical details of, say, mixing the right sunburn salve or creating an atomic bomb. Forsyth turned to novels after a long career as a newspaper and radio reporter throughout Europe and Africa.

Writer Michael Dorris. He and his wife, Louise Erdrich, have written several novels together, including Love Medicine and Yellow Raft in Blue Water. Both are part Native American, and Dorris spent several years of his childhood on an Indian reservation. He has adopted many children, one of which he later discovered was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Dorris's new book, The Broken Cord, is about this syndrome, and also his personal story of dealing with it in his family.

Novelist Cynthia Kadohata. Her first novel, The Floating World, is a `road novel' about a second generation Asian American teenager who leads a nomadic life with her parents as her father travels the country from one job to the next. As her journey unfolds, the protagonist struggles to find her place in her family and in America. Kadohata's short stories have appeared in The New Yorker and the quarterly The Pennsylvania Review. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Writer Allan Gurganus. His novel, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, which is scheduled for publication later this fall, is the story of a blind 99-year-old widow, now confined to a nursing home, whose stories about her life and her husband's take in almost 150 years of American history. Mostly her stories focus on her husband and how his experiences in the Civil War, when he was only 13, haunted him, and her, until he died. Gurganus, a professor of writing at New York's Sarah Lawrence University, has written for The New Yorker, Harpers and The Atlantic Monthly.

Feminist writer Barbara Wilson (sometimes Barbara Sjoholm). She's a co-founder of the feminist publishing house, Seal Press. She also writes detective novels whose heroine is a lesbian feminist detective. Her latest novel, The Dog Collar Murders, offers a humorous look at the debates between the S&M and anti-porn factions of the feminist community.

An's White Badge is the first Korean novel to be published by an American house. The story is based on his experience as a soldier in the Vietnam War. An also works as a translator, and has translated several American books into Korean.

Novelist Richard Price suffered from spinal cancer; surgery left him wheelchair-bound. Instead of taking pain medicine, he opted for hypnosis, which stirred long-forgotten memories of his early life. He turned those recollections into a new memoir, called Clear Pictures.

Author and humorist Paul Rudnick sees shopping as a reward, a way of exploring different cultures, and an enjoyable activity in its own right. His new novel, inspired by his many shopping trips with his mother, is called I'll Take It.

Apelfeld is a Holocaust survivor; his family was sent to a concentration camp, despite their being non-practicing Jews. This history informs much of Apelfeld's work, including his new novel, For Every Sin.

The writer published her first story she was 35; her first novel came out nine years later. Her latest book, Silver, is about marriage, domesticity and suburban life.