The Magician's Assistant
by Ann Patchett

List Price: $14.00
Pages: 368
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0156006219
Publisher: Harvest Books

Ann Patchett was born in Los Angeles in 1963 and moved to Tennessee at the age of six. She was determined to be a writer from an early age. Patchett attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied under Russell Banks, Grace Paley and Alan Gurganus, and she sold her first story to The Paris Review before graduating. Patchett attended the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, earning a Masters in Fine Arts. In 1990, she was a residential fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and it was there she began to write her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars. The novel won a James A. Michner/Copernicus Award for a book in progress. Published in 1992, The Patron Saint of Liars was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. The American Library Association Notable Books Council chose it as one of the best works of fiction for the year. CBS adapted the novel to a TV movie in 1997.

Patchett has subsequently written three more acclaimed novels - Taft, The Magician's Assistant, and Bel Canto. Her most recent work, Bel Canto, is a 2002 Pen/Faulkner Award winner, a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, and a recipient of England's Orange Prize. Patchett has written for various magazines and newspapers, including Elle, GQ, Paris Review, Vogue, New York Times Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and Gourmet. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

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