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Anne Fadiman

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Procrastinatrix (talk | contribs) at 20:39, 30 August 2007 (Undid revision 154654935 -- She is not Hmong-American but her book "The Spirit Catches You...." was a major text in understanding Hmong culture in America, which should be recognized.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Anne Fadiman (born August 7, 1953) is an American author, editor and teacher.

A native of New York, Anne Fadiman is the daughter of the renowned literary, radio and television personality Clifton Fadiman and World War II correspondent and author Annalee Jacoby Fadiman. She attended Harvard University, graduating in 1975 from Radcliffe College.

Fadiman's 1997 book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Researched in California, it examined a generational Hmong family with an epileptic child, and their cultural, linguistic and medical struggles in America.

She's written two books of essays, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader (1998) and At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays (2007), and edited Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love (2005).

Fadiman was a founding editor of the Library of Congress magazine Civilization, and was the editor of the Phi Beta Kappa quarterly The American Scholar. She was forced out of her position at The American Scholar in 2004 in a dispute over budgetary and other issues.[1]

As of January 2005, in a program established by Yale alumnus Paul E. Francis, Anne Fadiman became Yale University's first Francis Writer in Residence, a three-year position which allows her to teach a non-fiction writing seminar, and advise, mentor and interact with students and editors of undergraduate publications.