Fanny Howe read literature at the University of Oxford, where she was awarded her B.A. She then moved to New York City where she became involved in the literary life of Greenwich Village. Her novel, The First Stone (1957), was published by Random House and won the National Book Award for Fiction. After publishing several volumes of poetry, Howe began work on her first novel, A Book of Common Prayer, which she completed in 1962
This novel was published in 1970 by Viking Press and was praised by critics as one of the great novels of our time. Recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, A Book of Common Prayer was declared "one of the 100 most important books written in English since World War II" by The New York Times Book Review . The author's other novels include Loon Lake (1972) and The Hidden River (1976), which were also well received.
Howe later turned to writing plays and worked on several collaborative projects with Richard Foreman. She continued to write essays and poems throughout her life—some of which have been collected in memoirs such as The Light Around the Corner (1993), A Woman's Place (2005), and The Day Before Yesterday(2010).
Why does a heart wear its eyesinto helllike slivers of false sunshineFanny Howe
In poetry, I have, since very young, loved poetry in translation. The Chinese, the French, the Russians, Italians, Indians and early Celts: the formality of the translator's voice, their measured breath and anxiety moves me as it lingers over the original.Fanny Howe
