Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0012012, Tue, 8 Nov 2005 08:12:12 -0800

Subject
Fwd: RE: Bobbie Ann Mason & ADA
Date
Body
And even after writing her first two or three books, she still named ADA her
favorite novel. Perhaps a case of Hopkins's "Admire, and do otherwise."

Brian Boyd


________________________________

From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum on behalf of D. Barton Johnson
Sent: Tue 8/11/2005 2:28 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Bobbie Ann Mason & ADA


EDNOTE. This caught my eye because Mason was the first to publish a book about
ADA---NABOKOV'S GARDEN: A GUIDE TO ADA (Ardis, 1974). She had sent her
dissertation to Carl Proffer (co-founder of Ardis which republished VN Russian
works) and he sent it to VN for comment. Mason went on to become a well-known
writer--mostly about lower class folk of the border states, especially
Kentucky. What has always bemused me is how Mason who had saturated herself in
ADA became the sort of writer she is.
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Novelist to be given Corrington Award at Centenary College
<http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051101/LIVING/511010301/1004>
Shreveport Times, LA - Nov 1, 2005
... of four novels, four collections of short stories, a literary memoir, a
brief biography of Elvis Presley, a scholarly guide to Vladimir Nabokov's novel
"Ada ...

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051101/LIVING/511010301/1004
<http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051101/LIVING/511010301/1004>

Novelist to be given Corrington Award at Centenary College
November 1, 2005
From Staff Reports

Bobbie Ann Mason, whose most recent novel, "An Atomic Romance," was published by
Random House in August, will be presented the 15th annual John William
Corrington Award for Literary Excellence on Wednesday at Centenary College in
Shreveport.

The ceremony, which will include a reading by the author, will take place at 7
p.m. in the Smith Building's Kilpatrick Auditorium.



Mason is the author of four novels, four collections of short stories, a
literary memoir, a brief biography of Elvis Presley, a scholarly guide to
Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Ada," based on her doctoral dissertation and a
feminist study of such heroines of adolescent literature as Nancy Drew and the
Bobbsey Twins.

She made her mark on contemporary fiction with "Shiloh" and "Other Stories"
(1982), which received the PEN/Hemingway Award in 1983. As a novelist, she is
best known for "In Country" (1985), a coming-of-age narrative about a
17-year-old girl whose father was killed in Vietnam before she was born. The
1989 film version of "In Country" was directed by Norman Jewison and starred
Bruce Willis as the girl's uncle, himself an ailing Vietnam War veteran with
whom she travels from their home in rural Kentucky to the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial in Washington, D.C.

A native of rural Kentucky, Mason was educated at the University of Kentucky,
the State University of New York at Binghamton and the University of
Connecticut, where she earned a doctorate in English. She is the recipient of a
Guggenheim fellowship, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and two
Southern Book Awards.

The award she will be presented is named after the Centenary alumnus and author
of the short novel "Decoration Day." It is in the form of a bronze medal
designed by internationally acclaimed Louisiana sculptor Clyde Connell.

Previous recipients include: Eudora Welty, Ernest J. Gaines, James Dickey,
Miller Williams, Lee Smith, Paul Auster, Elizabeth Spencer, Anthony Hecht,
Richard Wilbur, Eleanor Wilner, Richard Powers, C.K. Williams, Eavan Boland,
Michael Longley and last year's co-recipients, Debora Greger and William Logan.







d

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