Claire Messud

Claire Messud (born 1966) is an American novelist. Her debut novel, When The World Was Steady (1995), was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award. In 1999, she published her second book, The Last Life, about three generations of a French-Algerian family. Her 2001 work, The Hunters, consists of two novellas. Her most recent novel, The Emperor’s Children, has been longlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. She wrote the novel while a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in 2004-2005. [1] The American Academy of Arts and Letters recognized Messud's talent with both an Addison Metcalf Award and a Strauss Living Award. She was considered for the 2003 Granta Best of Young British Novelists list, but none of the three passports she holds is British [2].

Born in Toulon in France (like her sister), Messud grew up in the United States, Australia and Canada, returning to the US as a teenager. Her mother is Canadian, her father is of French origin (from formerly-French Algeria), and her sister is French. She was educated at Milton Academy, Yale University and then Cambridge, where she met her spouse, the British author James Wood. Messud also briefly attended the MFA program at Syracuse University. She and Wood have two children, and live in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Works