Anna Shapiro

Anna Shapiro was born in Rome, Italy, to New York artists and writers involved in leftist politics, and grew up on Long Island and in Vermont. After stints in art schools and an involvement in the early Conceptual scene, she started writing, receiving a prize that included fully paid tuition to the Columbia University masters program in fiction. For a long period she was a regular book reviewer for The New Yorker, and she has written about books for The New York Times, The Guardian (England), The Nation, and many other journals as well, and also published editorials. Her one volume of nonfiction is a collection of essays about fiction (Proust, Mann, Tolstoy) in which food is pivotal to the plot or as a central metaphor. Her novels concern the loves and aspirations of artists and musicians in New York City.