Schiff, Stacy

PERSONAL: Education: Attended Williams College and Phillips Academy.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Henry Holt and Co., 175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER: Writer and editor. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, senior editor.

AWARDS, HONORS: Pulitzer Prize finalist, 1995, for Saint Exupery: A Biography; Pulitzer Prize, for biography, 2000, for Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov); Guggenheim Foundation fellow; National Endowment for the Humanities fellow.

WRITINGS:

Saint-Exupery: A Biography, Random House (New York, NY), 1994.

Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov): Portrait of a Marriage, Random House (New York, NY), 1999.

A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including New Yorker, Times Literary Supplement, and New York Times Book Review.

SIDELIGHTS: Stacy Schiff's Saint-Exupery: A Biography is a detailed study of the life of French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–1944), who is best known for his book The Little Prince. Saint-Exupery, known to his friends as "Saint-Ex," was born to a family of provincial nobility that had fallen on hard times, and as a young boy he showed both poetic sensitivity and skilled mechanical aptitude. In the 1920s these interests flowered when he became a pilot and published his first short story.

Saint-Exupery delivered mail for a French company, flying over the western Sahara to bring mail to Dakar. He spent two years in the desert, in charge of rescuing other pilots who had become stranded. As a pilot, he had plenty of time to think, and he began developing the ideas that marked his work: the importance of bonding between friends, shared responsibility, and the importance of an inner spiritual life.

He then went to South America, where he became the manager of operations for a mail route to remote Patagonia, and then worked for Air France. At the same time, he continued to write. In 1942 he was sent to Algiers to fight with the Free French Forces during World War II. In 1944 he flew over German-occupied France, and disappeared in the course of this mission.

Schiff's biography provides a detailed and enthusiastic look at Saint-Exupery's life as a flier and as a writer, with most of the emphasis on his experiences as a pilot. In the New York Times Book Review, Isabelle de Courtivron wrote that Schiff's book is "welcome and timely." She also praised Schiff's research into the minutiae of Saint-Exupery's life and her study of pioneering French aviation. In the New York Review of Books, A. Alvarez commended Schiff's "subtle, sensitive, and extraordinarily fair-minded" account of Saint-Exupery's life.

Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov): Portrait of a Marriage, a 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner, tells the story of Vera Nabokov and her devotion to her husband and his literary career. The couple were very close; Vera edited, translated, negotiated, and conducted correspondence about her husband's writing, and he dedicated every book "To Vera." A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that the book "offers more than a peek at the famous author through his wife's eyes." In the New York Times Book Review, Lyndall Gordon remarked that Schiff "does not attempt to explain away the enigma that Vera presents," referring to the fact that Vera vetoed a proposed book about the love life of Siamese twins, but earnestly supported Nabokov's book Lolita, about a man who has an affair with his twelve-year-old stepdaughter. Gordon also praised Schiff's "flair for the succinct" and her ability to show that "the lives of the obscure can be as intriguing as the lives of the famous." In the London Review of Books, Jenny Diski remarked that Vera was "well-served by Stacy Schiff who understands mirrors, magicians, and doppelgang-ers" well enough to understand Vera's double life as "just a wife" and as Nabokov's mainstay and inspiration.

Schiff chronicles the biography of a pivotal figure, and documents the story of a critical diplomatic mission, in A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. In what Kliatt reviewer Miles Klein called an "exquisite narrative account, well researched and vividly presented," Schiff recounts Benjamin Franklin's all-important mission to France, where he sought financial support for the thirteen new colonies and their struggle for independence from England. Schiff examines Franklin's reception in France, and describes how the envoy was treated as a celebrity and intellectual as well as a dignitary. Though advanced in years, Franklin was enormously popular. He was quite charismatic, with a quick wit and keen ability to make conversation. His presence in France helped to muster support for the Americans and their fight for independence. Still, Schiff points out, Franklin knew the difficult position his fledgling country was in, and he was acutely aware of the political climate in Europe that could have turned opinion against the new colonies. His main goal was to secure financial support from France's King Louis XVI. During his nine years in France, from 1776 to 1785, he succeeded in gaining Louis's support, thus ensuring critical backing when the colonies needed it most. In a review of the audio-book version, Booklist reviewer Karen Harris commented that "this essential book presents a fuller understanding of the establishment of the nation" and of a critical period in the history of the United States. A contributor to the Economist called the book an "ebullient account" of Franklin's years, and successes, in France.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July, 2005, Karen Harris, review of A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, p. 1934.

Economist, April 30, 2005, review of A Great Improvisation, p. 79.

Kliatt, September, 2005, Miles Klein, review of A Great Improvisation, p. 59.

London Review of Books, July 1, 1999, Jenny Diski, review of Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov): Portrait of a Marriage, p. 14.

New York Review of Books, February 2, 1995, A. Alvarez, review of Saint Exupery: A Biography, p. 7.

New York Times Book Review, January 8, 1995, Isabelle de Courtivron, review of Saint Exupery, p. 33; April 25, 1999, Lyndall Gordon, review of Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), p. 34.

Publishers Weekly, March 22, 1999, review of Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), p. 81.