Lydia Davis

About

Known for such acclaimed short story collections as Varieties of Disturbance and Break It Down, she was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award and for the 1986 PEN/Hemingway Award.

Before Fame

She graduated from Barnard College and later taught at both New York University and the State University of New York at Albany.

Trivia

A poet as well as a fiction writer, she published work in both The Best American Poetry and The Best American Short Stories anthologies.

Family Life

The daughter of English teachers, she married novelist Paul Auster in the mid-1970s. She later remarried a visual artist named Alan Cote.

Associated With

She prepared a 2010 English translation of Gustave Flaubert's classic French novel, Madame Bovary.