Edith Pearlman was the author of several short story collections including Vaquita (1996), Love Among the Greats (2002), and How to Fall (2005). However, it was her breakthrough new and selected story collection, Binocular Vision, published by Lookout Books in 2011 when she was 74, that brought her to literary prominence and a wider audience. She followed up this achievement with her final publication, Honeydew, in 2015. Edith was a finalist for the National Book Award and received the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature, the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction, and the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story. She died on January 1st at the age of 86.
At the Foundation, Edith will always be remembered for her wonderful and charming presence at our 2011 Writers’ Awards celebration in New York City, where she was our guest speaker. Her words of wisdom directed to the six grant recipients that year were full of wit, encouragement, and generosity.
2011 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards winners with Edith Pearlman (l-r): Melanie Drane, JoAnn Wypijewski, Fowzia Karimi, Edith Pearlman, Apricot Irving, Merritt Tierce, Namwali Serpell (photo credit: Star Black)