Rebecca Donner is a Canadian-born writer. She is the author of All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, which won the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, and The Chautauqua Prize[1][2] She was a 2023 Visiting Scholar at Oxford,[3] and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of her contribution to historical scholarship.[4] She is currently a 2023-2024 Fellow at Harvard.[5]

Rebecca Donner
EducationUniversity of California, Berkeley (BA)
Columbia University (MFA)
OccupationWriter
AwardsNational Book Critics Circle Award for Biography (2022)
PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography (2022)
Guggenheim Fellowship (2022)
The Chautauqua Prize (2022)

Biography edit

Donner was born in Canada, and during childhood lived in Japan, Michigan, Virginia, and California.[6][7] She received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley and MFA from Columbia University.[8][9] She taught writing at Wesleyan University.[10] She wrote “Sunset Terrace,” a novel set in Los Angeles, followed by “Burnout,” a graphic novel about ecoterrorism.[9]

In 2021, Donner published a biography, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, of her great-great-aunt, Mildred Harnack, an American who was part of the Nazi resistance in Germany and was executed in 1943 on Hitler's orders.[7][9][11] The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, and The Chautauqua Prize[1][9][12][13][14][15] All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days was also a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Plutarch Award,[16] and a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction at the 2022 Governor General's Awards.[17] Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird praised the book as "a stunning literary achievement."[18][19]

Donner is an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of her contribution to historical scholarship. [20] She received a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship in the general nonfiction category.[21] In 2023, Donner was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford.[3] She is currently a 2023-2024 Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.[5]

Awards and honors edit

  • 2023-2024 Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, Harvard[5]
  • 2023 Visiting Scholar, Oxford[3]
  • 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship[22]
  • 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography[23]
  • 2022 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography[24]
  • 2022 Chautauqua Prize[1]
  • 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, finalist[25]
  • 2022 Governor General's Literary Award, finalist[26]
  • 2022 Plutarch Award, finalist[27]

Works edit

  • Donner, Rebecca (2021). All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-56169-3.[28][29][12][30]
  • Donner, Rebecca (2008). Burnout. New York. ISBN 9781401215378.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)[31]
  • Donner, Rebecca (2003). Sunset Terrace. MacAdam/Cage. ISBN 978-1-931561-34-1.[32][33][34]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Borgstrom, Megan (2022-06-02). "Rebecca Donner's 'All The Frequent Troubles Of Our Days' Wins 2022 Chautauqua Prize". Chautauqua Institution. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  2. ^ "Bio". Rebecca Donner. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  3. ^ a b c "Rebecca Donner". oclw.web.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  4. ^ https://files.royalhistsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/18102908/Fellows-Oct-23_pdf.pdf
  5. ^ a b c "Rebecca Donner". Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  6. ^ "Rebecca Donner". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  7. ^ a b Patrick, Bethanne (19 August 2021). "How a novelist cracked the real-life story of her Nazi-fighting ancestor". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  8. ^ "Alumna Rebecca Donner '01 Wins National Book Critics Circle Award". Columbia - School of the Arts. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  9. ^ a b c d
  10. ^ "Advanced Fiction Writing ENGL 146". owaprod-pub.wesleyan.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  11. ^ "Rebecca Donner Tells The Story Of Her Great-Great-Aunt, Executed For Nazi Resistance". NPR.org. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  12. ^ a b Klein, Julia M. (3 August 2021). "In World War II Berlin, a little-known story of German resistance". The Forward. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  13. ^ "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner: 2021 Biography Finalist". National Book Critics Circle. 2022-03-15. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  14. ^ "The National Book Critics Circle Award". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  15. ^ "PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography". PEN America. 2020-06-09. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  16. ^ "BIO Announces Plutarch Award Finalists". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  17. ^ "The finalists for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction". CBC Books. October 12, 2022. Retrieved October 12, 2022.
  18. ^ "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days". April 7, 2020 – via www.hachettebookgroup.com.
  19. ^ Borgstrom, Megan (June 2, 2022). "Rebecca Donner's 'All The Frequent Troubles Of Our Days' Wins 2022 Chautauqua Prize". Chautauqua Institution.
  20. ^ https://files.royalhistsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/18102908/Fellows-Oct-23_pdf.pdf
  21. ^ "Rebecca Donner". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 2022-05-24.
  22. ^ "Rebecca Donner". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation... Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  23. ^ Schaub, Michael (2022-03-18). "Announcing the Winners of the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Awards". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  24. ^ "Announcing the 2022 PEN America Literary Awards Winners". PEN America. 2022-02-28. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  25. ^ "Mariana Enriquez, Michael Connelly, S.A. Cosby among L.A. Times Book Prize finalists". Los Angeles Times. 2022-02-23. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  26. ^ "The finalists for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction". Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  27. ^ "The Plutarch Award". Biographers International Organization. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  28. ^ Saldarriaga, Nicole (July 14, 2021). "'All the Frequent Troubles of our Days' by Alumna Rebecca Donner '01 Coming in Early August". School of the Arts. columbia.edu. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  29. ^ "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner". publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  30. ^ Donner, Rebecca; Freeman, Jason; Large, David Clay (August 9, 2021). "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days". C-SPAN video. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
  31. ^ "BURNOUT". Kirkus Reviews. June 1, 2008. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  32. ^ "SUNSET TERRACE". Kirkus Reviews. May 21, 2003. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  33. ^ "SUNSET TERRACE by Rebecca Donner". publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  34. ^ Aures, Kam (January 25, 2004). "Rebecca Donner : Sunset Terrace : Book Review". mostlyfiction.com. Retrieved 26 February 2023.