Lisa Appignanesi
Encyclopedia
Lisa Appignanesi is a British writer, novelist, and campaigner for free expression. She is president of the writers’ organization English PEN. Her latest book is All About Love: Anatomy of an Unruly Emotion. Her previous book, Mad, Bad, and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors won the 2009 British Medical Association Award for the Public Understanding of Science, amongst other prizes.
. She grew up in Paris
and Montreal
, where she studied at McGill University
and worked as a Features Editor for The McGill Daily
. Following her BA in English and MA (with a thesis on Edgar Allan Poe
), she moved to Britain, to do a PhD in Comparative Literature University of Sussex
. During this period she spent some time in Paris and Vienna
and wrote a thesis on Henry James
, Marcel Proust
and Robert Musil
which was published in 1974 as Proust, Musil and Henry James: Femininity and the Creative Imagination.
. Appignanesi also lectured at New England College, and in 1976 helped found the Writers and Readers writers collective
, which launched the important graphic Beginners series with titles on Marx and Freud. In 1975 she published The Cabaret, a history of cabaret
, a new edition of which came out in 2005 (Yale University Press).
in London, where she stayed for ten years and helped the ICA talks programme gain a reputation as "an intellectual hothouse". While at the ICA she edited the Documents series, which included the books Postmodernism and Ideas from France. She became Deputy Director of the ICA in 1986 and created the ICA-Television branch, which produced England's Henry Moore in 1988 and Seductions for Channel Four She left the ICA in 1990 to write full-time, and received publishing deals for Memory and Desire and Freud's Women (co-written with John Forrester) published in 1991 and 1992 respectively. As well as these she has written nine other fiction and two non-fiction books, including the highly acclaimed Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors in 2008.
As well as her writing Appignanesi has also co-written a film on Salman Rushdie for French television, presented two series of radio programmes on Sigmund Freud
for BBC Radio 4
, presented the arts and ideas Nightwaves programme for BBC 3, contributed to a variety of programmes, including Start the Week and Women’s Hour, and written for the New Writing Partnership. Appignanesi has appeared as a cultural commentator on many television programmes, including the BBC's Newsnight
and Late Review. She is the General Editor of The Big Ideas series, published by Profile, which includes Violence by Slavoj Zizek
and Bodies, by Susie Orbach
. She worked as a fellow of the Brain and Behavior Laboratory at the Open University
, was a council-member of the ICA (2000–06) and is Chair of the Freud Museum
, London. She has also written for The Guardian
, The Observer
, The Independent
, and The Daily Telegraph
. In 2004 she became the Deputy President of English PEN
and in 2008 the President. As part of her work with English PEN she edited Free Expression is No Offence, a collection of writings that formed part of English PEN's protest against what became the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006
and helped induce the British Government to amend the Bill by inserting a robust clause protecting freedom of expression. Under her Presidency, English PEN launched its report on Libel Reform, "Free Speech is Not for Sale," helped to rid Britain of obsolete Blasphemy and Criminal Libel laws, as well as setting up the PEN PINTER PRIZE. Appignanesi was also voted one of Britain's Top 101 Female Public Intellectuals.
Appignanesi has been nominated for the Charles Taylor Prize
, and the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize
for her critically acclaimed family memoir Losing the Dead, while her novel The Memory Man was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize
and won the Canadian Holocaust Fiction Award. Mad, Bad and Sad was short-listed for the Warwick Prize
and long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize
, amongst others, and won several awards. With John Berger
, she translated the work of Nella Bielski. The Year is 42 won the Scott Moncrieff Prize
for Literary Translation.
In 1987 she was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
. Her popular fictions are reminiscent of those of Lesley Glaister
and Sally Beauman
, while her psychological thrillers have been compared to those of Nicci French
.
. The couple later divorced. Her later partner is John Forrester. Their child, Lisa Appignanesi's second, is Katrina Forrester, a PhD student in political thought at Cambridge.
Early life and education
Appignanesi was born in Łódź, PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. She grew up in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, where she studied at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
and worked as a Features Editor for The McGill Daily
The McGill Daily
The McGill Daily is a campus newspaper created and run by students of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The paper was first published in 1911.The paper was originally published daily, but is now issued twice a week...
. Following her BA in English and MA (with a thesis on Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
), she moved to Britain, to do a PhD in Comparative Literature University of Sussex
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
. During this period she spent some time in Paris and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and wrote a thesis on Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
and Robert Musil
Robert Musil
Robert Musil was an Austrian writer. His unfinished long novel The Man Without Qualities is generally considered to be one of the most important modernist novels...
which was published in 1974 as Proust, Musil and Henry James: Femininity and the Creative Imagination.
Academic work
After a year working as a writer in a Manhattan social research firm Appignanesi returned to Britain to work as a European Studies lecturer at the University of EssexUniversity of Essex
The University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...
. Appignanesi also lectured at New England College, and in 1976 helped found the Writers and Readers writers collective
Collective
A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project to achieve a common objective...
, which launched the important graphic Beginners series with titles on Marx and Freud. In 1975 she published The Cabaret, a history of cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
, a new edition of which came out in 2005 (Yale University Press).
ICA and full-time writing
In 1980 she left academia to become Director of Talks and Seminars at the Institute of Contemporary ArtsInstitute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
in London, where she stayed for ten years and helped the ICA talks programme gain a reputation as "an intellectual hothouse". While at the ICA she edited the Documents series, which included the books Postmodernism and Ideas from France. She became Deputy Director of the ICA in 1986 and created the ICA-Television branch, which produced England's Henry Moore in 1988 and Seductions for Channel Four She left the ICA in 1990 to write full-time, and received publishing deals for Memory and Desire and Freud's Women (co-written with John Forrester) published in 1991 and 1992 respectively. As well as these she has written nine other fiction and two non-fiction books, including the highly acclaimed Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors in 2008.
As well as her writing Appignanesi has also co-written a film on Salman Rushdie for French television, presented two series of radio programmes on Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
for BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
, presented the arts and ideas Nightwaves programme for BBC 3, contributed to a variety of programmes, including Start the Week and Women’s Hour, and written for the New Writing Partnership. Appignanesi has appeared as a cultural commentator on many television programmes, including the BBC's Newsnight
Newsnight
Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
and Late Review. She is the General Editor of The Big Ideas series, published by Profile, which includes Violence by Slavoj Zizek
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....
and Bodies, by Susie Orbach
Susie Orbach
Susie Orbach is a psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, writer, and social critic from London, UK.-Background:Orbach was born in London, in 1946, and was brought up in Chalk Farm, north London, the child of Jewish parents, British MP Maurice Orbach and an American mother...
. She worked as a fellow of the Brain and Behavior Laboratory at the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
, was a council-member of the ICA (2000–06) and is Chair of the Freud Museum
Freud Museum
The Freud Museum, at 20 Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead, was the home of Sigmund Freud and his family when they escaped Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938. It remained the family home until Anna Freud, the youngest daughter, died in 1982. The centrepiece of the museum is Freud's study, preserved...
, London. She has also written for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, and The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
. In 2004 she became the Deputy President of English PEN
International PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
and in 2008 the President. As part of her work with English PEN she edited Free Expression is No Offence, a collection of writings that formed part of English PEN's protest against what became the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006
Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006
The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which creates an offence in England and Wales of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion...
and helped induce the British Government to amend the Bill by inserting a robust clause protecting freedom of expression. Under her Presidency, English PEN launched its report on Libel Reform, "Free Speech is Not for Sale," helped to rid Britain of obsolete Blasphemy and Criminal Libel laws, as well as setting up the PEN PINTER PRIZE. Appignanesi was also voted one of Britain's Top 101 Female Public Intellectuals.
Appignanesi has been nominated for the Charles Taylor Prize
Charles Taylor Prize
The Charles Taylor Prize is a Canadian literary award, presented by the Charles Taylor Foundation to the best Canadian work of literary non-fiction. It is named for Charles Taylor, a noted Canadian historian and writer....
, and the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize
Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize
JQ Wingate Prize is an annual British literary prize inaugurated in 1977. It is named after the host Jewish Quarterly and the prize's founder Harold Hyam Wingate...
for her critically acclaimed family memoir Losing the Dead, while her novel The Memory Man was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize
Commonwealth Writers' Prize
Commonwealth Writers is an initiative by the Commonwealth Foundation to unearth, develop and promote the best new fiction from across the Commonwealth. It's flagship are two literary awards and a website...
and won the Canadian Holocaust Fiction Award. Mad, Bad and Sad was short-listed for the Warwick Prize
Warwick Prize for Writing
The Warwick Prize for Writing is an international cross-disciplinary prize, worth £50,000, that will be given biennially for an excellent and substantial piece of writing in the English language, in any genre or form, on a theme that will change with every award. It was launched and sponsored by...
and long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize
Samuel Johnson Prize
The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is one of the most prestigious prizes for non-fiction writing. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award and based on an anonymous donation. The prize is named after Samuel Johnson...
, amongst others, and won several awards. With John Berger
John Berger
John Peter Berger is an English art critic, novelist, painter and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a university text.-Education:Born in Hackney, London, England, Berger was...
, she translated the work of Nella Bielski. The Year is 42 won the Scott Moncrieff Prize
Scott Moncrieff Prize
The Scott Moncrieff Prize, named after the translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff, is an annual £2,000 literary prize for French to English translation, awarded to one or more translators every year for a full-length work deemed by the Translators Association to have "literary merit"...
for Literary Translation.
In 1987 she was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
. Her popular fictions are reminiscent of those of Lesley Glaister
Lesley Glaister
Lesley Glaister is a British novelist and playwright. She has written 12 novels, Chosen being the most recent, one play and numerous short stories and radio plays. She is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of St Andrews, and is a regular contributor of book reviews to the Spectator...
and Sally Beauman
Sally Beauman
Sally Beauman is a British author best known for her Rebecca sequel, Rebecca's Tale.She was educated at Redland High School and Girton College, Cambridge....
, while her psychological thrillers have been compared to those of Nicci French
Nicci French
Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together.-Personal life:...
.
Personal life
Lisa Appignanesi first married Richard Appignanesi, another writer, with whom she had one son, the film director Josh AppignanesiJosh Appignanesi
Josh Appignanesi is a British film director, producer, and screenwriter.Appignanesi is best known for the feature film Song Of Songs , starring Nathalie Press, which he directed, co-wrote and co-produced. The film won several awards including a special commendation for Best British Film at the...
. The couple later divorced. Her later partner is John Forrester. Their child, Lisa Appignanesi's second, is Katrina Forrester, a PhD student in political thought at Cambridge.