Smiley, Jane
Smiley, Jane ( 1951 – ),American novelist, born in Los Angeles, best known for her novel A Thousand Acres ( 1992 ), for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In this grim retelling of the King Lear story, set like much of Smiley's work in the American Midwest, Larry King decides to retire and pass his farm down to his three daughters, Ginny, Rose, and Caroline; Smiley describes the tragic consequences of this decision eloquently and with a remarkable sense of both morality on an epic scale and intimate details of character.
Her other novels include the thriller Duplicate Keys ( 1984 ) and Moo ( 1995 ), a wryly satirical look at university campus life in Midwestern America. She has also published a collection of short stories, The Age of Grief ( 1988 ).
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