To coincide with the Dutch translation of her new novel Black and Blue, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Anna Quindlen gave a lecture in the American Literature Today series on 21 April, 1998. After graduating from Barnard, Anna Quindlen (b. 1952) became a general assignment reporter on The New York Times at age 24. She was promoted to deputy metropolitan reporter in 1983, becoming one of the few women to advance into the editorial ranks of The New York Times. In 1992, she won the Pulitzer-Prize for commentary. In 1995 One True Thing was published, a bestseller that brought her international fame. When it came out, Vogue wrote: ‘Anne Quindlen is the US’s number one having-it-all woman – a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist an uncompromising mother of three, and now the author of a novel that has hit the raw nerve of a nation.’
With the recently published Black and Blue, the impelling tale of a marriage that begins in passion and grows violent, Quindlen moves into a new dimension. Newsweek wrote: ‘Quindlen takes a giant step forward’. Kristien Hemmerechts, Flemish novelist and professor of English literature, introduced Anna Quindlen and led the discussion with the audience.