{{Short description|American writer (1928–2024)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=October 2024}} {{Infobox writer | name = Lore Segal | nationality = Austrian–American | birth_name = Lore Vailer Groszmann | birth_date = {{birth date|1928|3|8}} | birth_place = Vienna, Austria | death_date = {{death date and age|2024|10|7|1928|3|8}} | death_place = New York City, New York, U.S. | spouse = {{marriage|David Segal|1961|1970|end=d}} | children = 2 | occupation = {{hlist|Author|teacher|translator}} | period = 1964–2024 | education = University of London (BA) | image = Lore Segal 1939.png | caption = Segal in 1939 }}
'''Lore Segal''' (née '''Groszmann'''; March 8, 1928 – October 7, 2024) was an Austrian-American novelist, translator, teacher, short story writer, and author of children's books. She was the author of five novels, and was known for her autobiographical fiction, drawing on her life as an Austrian Jewish refugee who fled to the United Kingdom as a child, growing up in England before settling in the United States. Her fourth novel, ''Shakespeare's Kitchen'', was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2008.<ref name="marytaylor">{{Cite journal|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 27, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727085732/http://www.missourireview.org/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=1834|title=A Conversation with Lore Segal|url=https://www.missourireview.com/article/a-conversation-with-lore-segal/|date=December 1, 2007|volume=30.4 (Winter 2007)|journal=The Missouri Review|access-date=March 12, 2020|first1=Lore|last1=Segal|first2=Mary L. |last2=Tabor}}</ref>
==Early life== An only child, Lore Groszmann was born on March 8, 1928, in Vienna, Austria, into a middle-class Jewish family. Her father, Ignatz, was a chief bank accountant and her mother, Franziska was a housewife.<ref name = Green>{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/07/books/lore-segal-dead.html|title = Lore Segal, Mordant Memoirist of Émigré Life, Dies at 96|last = Green|first = Penelope|date = October 7, 2024|accessdate = October 7, 2024|newspaper = The New York Times|url-access = limited}}</ref>
When Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, Groszmann's father found himself jobless and threatened. He listed the family on the American immigration quota, and in December that year Lore Segal joined other Jewish children on the first wave of the Kindertransport rescue mission, seeking safety in England.<ref name="jewishhistory">{{Cite web|url=https://access.cjh.org/home.php?type=extid&term=413699#1|title=AHC Interview with Lore Segal — CJH Digital Collections|date=2009|last=Segal|first=Lore|publisher=Center for Jewish History|language=en|access-date=March 12, 2020}}</ref>
While with her English foster parents, she found a purple notebook and started writing, filling its 36 pages with German prose. It was the beginning of a novel she would eventually write in English, ''Other People's Houses''.<ref name="jewishhistory" />
On her eleventh birthday, her parents arrived in England on a domestic servants visa. Despite his refugee status, Ignatz Groszmann was labeled a German-speaking alien and interned on the Isle of Man,<ref name="martin2005" /> where he suffered a series of strokes. He died a few days before the war ended.<ref name = Shaer>{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/magazine/lore-segal-writing-death.html|title = A Master Storyteller, at the End of Her Story|last = Shaer|first = Matthew|date = October 6, 2024|accessdate = October 7, 2024|magazine = The New York Times Magazine|url-access = limited |archive-url=https://archive.today/20241006141337/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/magazine/lore-segal-writing-death.html |archive-date=October 6, 2024 |format=archive.ph}}</ref> Lore Groszmann and her mother then moved to London, where she attended the Bedford College for Women at the University of London on a scholarship. She graduated in 1948 with an honours<!--British English spelling--> degree in English literature.<ref name="nypl2009">{{Cite web|url=http://archives.nypl.org/mss/18766|title=Lore Segal papers : 1897–2009 [bulk 1939–1990]|website=archives.nypl.org|access-date=March 12, 2020|quote= After the War, she attended Bedford College, University of London, and in 1948 received a degree in English literature. [...]In May 1951, she and much of her family emigrated to New York City. }}</ref>
In 1951, after spending three years in the Dominican Republic with her mother, waiting for their US entry permit to arrive, they moved to Washington Heights, New York City, where they shared a two-room apartment with her grandmother and uncle.<ref name = Green/>
In 1961, she married David Segal, an editor at Knopf.<ref name = Shaer/>
==Career== Between 1968 and 1996, Segal taught writing at Columbia University's School of the Arts, Princeton, Bennington College, Sarah Lawrence, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Ohio State University, from which she retired in 1996. She later taught at 92NY.<ref name="segal">{{Cite web|url=https://www.mhpbooks.com/lore-segal/biography/|title=BIOGRAPHY — Lore Segal|website=www.loresegal.com|access-date=March 12, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040508061108/http://www.loresegal.net/|archive-date=May 8, 2004|url-status=live}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=October 2024}}
Segal published her first novel, ''Other People's Houses'', in 1964 to widespread acclaim.<ref name = Green/> Collecting her refugee stories from ''The New Yorker'' and writing a few more, Segal fictionalized her experience growing up in different households in England.<ref name = Shaer/>
In 1985, Segal's third novel ''Her First American'' was published,<ref name = Green/> which ''The New York Times'' praised, saying, "Lore Segal may have come closer than anyone to writing The Great American Novel." It tells the story of Ilka Weissnix, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Europe, and her relationship with Carter Bayoux, a middle-aged black intellectual, "her first American".<ref name = Green/> Segal based the character of Carter Bayoux on her friend Horace R. Cayton Jr., with whom she had been in a relationship for five years.<ref name = Smith>{{cite news|url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/10/09/lore-segal-dead/|title = Lore Segal, acclaimed novelist of memory and displacement, dies at 96|last = Smith|first = Harrison|date = October 9, 2024|accessdate = October 9, 2024|newspaper = The Washington Post|url-access = limited}}</ref> She received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for the novel.<ref name="shortstoryproject"/>
''Shakespeare's Kitchen'', published in 2007, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.<ref name = Green/> Thirteen stories make up the novel, set in a liberal college in Connecticut think tank.<ref name = Smith/> Segal evokes the comic melancholy of the outsider and the ineffectual ambitions of a progressive, predominantly WASP-ish institution. Tragedy and loss haunt characters as they plan an academic symposium on genocide, while their privileged lives contrast starkly with those on a derelict housing project next door. The novel was republished in slightly revised form in 2024 in the UK as ‘An Absence of Cousins’.
A fifth novel, ''Half the Kingdom'', was published by Melville House in October 2013.<ref name = Green/>
Regarding her work, Segal said, "I want to write about the stuff – in the midst of all the stew of being a human being – that is permanent, where Adam and Eve and I would have had the same experiences. I really am less interested in the social change."<ref name = Italie>{{Cite web|url=https://qconline.com/life/author-lore-segal-is-still-in-love-with-the-world/article_de85c849-35da-585d-be01-633ac5789198.html|title=Author Lore Segal is still in love with the world|last=Italie|first=Hillel|newspaper = The Dispatch / The Rock Island Argus|agency = Associated Press|date=May 22, 2011 |language=en|access-date=April 14, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414031720/https://qconline.com/life/author-lore-segal-is-still-in-love-with-the-world/article_de85c849-35da-585d-be01-633ac5789198.html|archive-date=April 14, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> Her novels often deal with the process of assimilation, from a refugee arriving in a new country which must become her home (as in ''Her First American''), to a flighty poet finding her footing in a constantly moving literary world (as in ''Lucinella'').<ref name = Green/>
Segal continued to write until the end of her life, authoring short stories in ''The New Yorker''. The theme of many of these, written in her 90s, was ‘Ladies’ Lunch’, in which a group of elderly women in Manhattan meet up to puzzle, and laugh at, the enigmas and affronts of ageing. These were collected and published as a novella in 2023, as ‘Ladies Lunch’. In the title story, one of their number is placed unhappily in a home and the others conspire to spring her. Segal had a late flowering of success for the volume and continued writing ‘Ladies Lunch’ stories up until her last days. The final one, authored by dictation as her health declined, was published by the New Yorker a week before her death. She had been writing continuously for the magazine since 1960.<ref name = Shaer/><ref>{{cite magazine|url = https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/lore-segal|title = Lore Segal|magazine = The New Yorker|accessdate = October 7, 2024}}</ref>
==Personal life and death== Segal and her husband, David, were married for nine years, until his death from a heart attack in 1970, aged 42. They had two children.<ref name = Shaer/>
Segal and her mother, Franzi Groszmann, appeared in the films ''My Knees Were Jumping; Remembering the Kindertransports'' (1996), directed by Melissa Hacker, which was short-listed for Academy Award nomination, and ''Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport'', directed by Mark Jonathan Harris and produced by Deborah Oppenheimer, which won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 2001. Segal's mother was the last survivor of the parents who placed their children in the Kindertransport program. Franzi died in 2005, one hundred years old.<ref name="martin2005">{{Cite news|last=Martin|first=Douglas|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/nyregion/franzi-groszmann-100-dies-sent-daughter-from-nazi-lands.html|title=Franzi Groszmann, 100, Dies; Sent Daughter From Nazi Lands|date=October 2, 2005|work=The New York Times|access-date=March 12, 2020|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
Segal lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.<ref name = Italie/> She entered palliative care at her home after an apparent heart attack in June 2024, and died there from heart failure on October 7, 2024, at the age of 96.<ref name = Shaer/><ref name = Smith/>
==Work== ===Novels=== * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=1964 |title=Other People's Houses |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt, Brace & World |lccn=63013508 |oclc=1397008}}<ref name=Shaer/> * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=1976 |title=Lucinella: A Novel |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=0374194254 |oclc=2332250}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=1985 |title=Her First American: A Novel |location=New York |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |isbn=0394536274 |oclc=230810163}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=2007 |title=Shakespeare's Kitchen |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=9781595581518 |oclc=71322296}} Republished in revised form as ‘An Absence of Cousins’, 2024, by Sort Of Books. * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=2013 |title=Half the Kingdom |location=Brooklyn, NY |publisher=Melville House |isbn=9781612193021 |oclc=844789831}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=2023 |title=Ladies' Lunch: A Novella and Other Stories |location=London, UK |publisher=Sort Of Books |isbn=9781914502033 |oclc=844789831}}
<!-- Uncited and apparently incomplete ===Short stories=== * "Burglars in the Flesh" (1980) * "A Wedding" (1981) * "The First American" (1983) * "An Absence of Cousins" (1987) * "The Reverse Bug" (1989) * "At Whom the Dog Barks" (1990) * "William's Shoes" (1991) * "Fatal Wish" (1991) * "Other People's Deaths" (2006) * "The Arbus Factor" (2007) * "Making Good" (2008) * "Spry for Frying" (2011) * "Ladies' Lunch" (2017) --> ===Translations=== * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=1967 |title=Gallows Songs of Christian Morgenstern |translator-last1=Snodgrass |translator-first1=W. D. |translator-link1=W. D. Snodgrass |translator-last2=Segal |translator-first2=Lore |location=Ann Arbor, MI |publisher=University of Michigan Press |lccn=67025337 |oclc=1079207255}} * {{Cite book |last1=Grimm |first1=Jacob |last2=Grimm |first2=Wilhelm K. |year=1973 |title=The Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm |translator-last1=Segal |translator-first1=Lore |translator-last2=Jarrell |translator-first2=Randall |others=Illustrated by Maurice Sendak |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=0374180571 |oclc=1366874}} Two volumes. * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore Groszmann |author-mask=1 |date=1987 |title=The Book of Adam to Moses |translator-last1=Segal |translator-first1=Lore |translator-last2=Baskin |translator-first2=Leonard |location=New York |publisher=Knopf Books for Young Readers |isbn=0394867572 |oclc=15108198}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |date=1991 |title=The Story of King Saul and King David |translator-last1=Segal |translator-first1=Lore |location=New York |publisher=Schocken Books |isbn=0805240888 |oclc=22862641}}
===Children's books=== * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |date=1970 |title=Tell Me a Mitzi |others=Illustrated by Harriet Pincus |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |lccn=69014980 |oclc=26667931}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=1973 |title=All the Way Home |others=Illustrated by James Marshall |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=0374302154 |oclc=1062877}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=1977 |title=Tell Me a Trudy |others=Illustrated by Rosemary Wells |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=0374373957 |oclc=3121083}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |title=The Story of Old Mrs. Brubeck and How She Looked for Trouble and Where She Found Him |others=Illustrated by Marcia Sewall |location=New York |publisher=Pantheon Books |isbn=0394840399 |oclc=4592988}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=1985 |title=The Story of Mrs. Lovewright and Purrless Her Cat |others=Illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky |location=New York |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |isbn=0394968174 |oclc=11397807}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=2003 |title=Morris the Artist |others=Illustrated by Boris Kulikov |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=0374350639 |oclc=49616924}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=2004 |title=Why Mole Shouted and Other Stories |others=Illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=0374384177 |oclc=50192526}} * {{Cite book |last=Segal |first=Lore |author-mask=1 |year=2005 |title=More Mole Stories and Little Gopher, Too |others=Illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=0374350264 |oclc=54206941}}
==Awards== * Dorothy & Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars Fellowship, 2008<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nypl.org/press/press-release/2008/03/31/new-york-public-librarys-dorothy-and-lewis-b-cullman-center-scholars | title=The New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Names 2008-2009 Fellows }}</ref> * Pulitzer Prize Finalist (''Shakespeare's Kitchen'', 2008)<ref>{{Cite web | title=The Pulitzer Prizes | url=https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/lore-segal | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160422174646/http://www.pulitzer.org:80/finalists/lore-segal | access-date=2025-08-14 | archive-date=2016-04-22}}</ref> * PEN/ O. Henry Prize Story, ("Making Good," 2008)<ref>{{cite web | url=https://fictionwritersreview.com/shoptalk/2010-peno-henry-prize-winners-announced/ | title=2010 PEN/O. Henry Prize Winners Announced }}</ref> * Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2006<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/230011/summary | title=A Conversation with Lore Segal | journal=The Missouri Review | date=2007 | volume=30 | issue=4 | pages=53–63 | last1=Tabor | first1=Mary L. | last2=Segal | first2=Lore Groszmann | doi=10.1353/mis.2008.0013 | url-access=subscription }}</ref> * Best American Short Stories, ("The Reverse Bug,"[1989] )<ref>{{Cite web | title=Fiction Forum: Lore Segal - New York City - The New School | url=https://events.newschool.edu/event/fiction_forum_lore_segal | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140317010830/http://events.newschool.edu:80/event/fiction_forum_lore_segal | access-date=2025-08-14 | archive-date=2014-03-17}}</ref> * The O. Henry Awards Prize Story, ("The Reverse Bug," 1990)<ref>{{cite web | url=https://penguinrandomhouseeducation.com/book/?isbn=9780385264990 | title=Pantheon | No Site Detected }}</ref> * University of Illinois, Senior University Scholar, 1987–1990<ref>{{Cite web | title=Honors - Lore Segal | url=http://www.members.authorsguild.net/lsegal/bio.htm | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414033857/http://www.members.authorsguild.net/lsegal/bio.htm | access-date=2025-08-14 | archive-date=2019-04-14}}</ref> * National Endowment for the Arts, Grant in Fiction, 1987–1988<ref>{{Cite web | title=Archived copy | url=https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEA-Annual-Report-1968.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140821181248/http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEA-Annual-Report-1968.pdf | archive-date=2014-08-21}}</ref> * American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award, 1986<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-04-08-ca-25589-story.html | title=Arts Institute Gives Awards | website=Los Angeles Times | date=April 8, 1986 }}</ref> * Harold U. Ribalow Prize, [1986]<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.librarything.com/bookaward/Harold+U.+Ribalow+Prize | title=Harold U. Ribalow Prize | Awards and Honors | LibraryThing }}</ref> * Carl Sandburg Award for Fiction, 1985<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-10-10-8503090242-story.html | title=Plimpton to Have Role at Literary Arts Ball | website=Chicago Tribune | date=October 10, 1985 }}</ref> * Artists Grant, The Illinois Arts Council, 1985<ref>{{Cite web | title=Lore Segal | work=Melville House Books | url=https://www.mhpbooks.com/lore-segal/praise-and-awards/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019042634/http://www.mhpbooks.com/lore-segal/praise-and-awards/ | access-date=2025-08-14 | archive-date=2013-10-19}}</ref> * Grawemeyer Award for Faculty, University of Louisville, 1983<ref>{{Cite web | title=Archived copy | url=https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/bulletin/downloads/winter2007bulletin.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414042938/https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/bulletin/downloads/winter2007bulletin.pdf | archive-date=2019-04-14}}</ref> * National Endowment for the Humanities, Grant in Translation, 1982 * National Endowment for the Arts, Grant for Fiction, 1972–1973<ref>{{Cite web | title=Lore Segal, 88, Wants Her Children's Classic 'Tell Me a Mitzi' Back on Bookshelves – Tablet Magazine | work=Tablet Magazine | date=August 26, 2015 | url=https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/193108/lore-segals-warm-and-weird-tell-me-a-mitzi | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905230755/http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/193108/lore-segals-warm-and-weird-tell-me-a-mitzi | access-date=2025-08-14 | archive-date=2015-09-05}}</ref> * Creative Artists Public Service Program of New York State, 1972–1973<ref>{{Cite web | title=archives.nypl.org -- Lore Segal papers | url=http://archives.nypl.org/mss/18766 | access-date=2025-08-14 | website=archives.nypl.org}}</ref> * American Library Association Notable Book selection (''Tell Me a Mitzi'', 1970) * National Council on the Arts and Humanities Grant, 1967–1968<ref>{{Cite web | title=Archived copy | url=https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEA-Annual-Report-1968.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140821181248/http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEA-Annual-Report-1968.pdf | archive-date=2014-08-21}}</ref> * Guggenheim Fellowship, 1965–1966<ref name="shortstoryproject">{{cite web |title=Lore Segal |url=https://shortstoryproject.com/writers/lore-segal/ |publisher=The Short Story Project |date=October 6, 2021 |quote=In 1965 she received the Guggenheim fellowship in creative writing followed by the National Council on the Arts and Humanities grant in 1967 and the Creative Artists Public Service Program grant in 1972. Lore Segal's novels include Lucinella (1976), Her First American (1985) winner of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award and...}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == * {{IMDb name|0781816}} * [http://www.mhpbooks.com/lore-segal Lore Segal Author Profile]—Melville House * [http://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/archivalcollections/pdf/mss18766.pdf Lore Segal Papers]—Manuscripts and Archives, New York Public Library * [https://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/04/video-lore-segal-on-coming-to-america.html Lore Segal "Coming to America" Video Series], ''The New Yorker'' * [https://www.newyorker.com/online/2010/11/22/101122on_audio_egan Jennifer Egan Reads Lore Segal], ''The New Yorker'' * [http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/segal-lore Lore Segal Profile]—Jewish Women's Archive * [http://www.randomhouse.com/anchor/ohenry/spotlight/segal.html Spotlight on Lore Segal]—Random House/O. Henry Prize * [https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/lore-segal-03-25-19 "Lore Segal on Memory as the Writer's Notebook"]—''The New Yorker'', March 18, 2019 * [https://player.fm/series/the-new-yorker-the-writers-voice-new-fiction-from-the-new-yorker-1283677/lore-segal-reads-dandelionLore "Lore Segal Reads Dandelion"]—''The New Yorker'', March 25, 2019
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Segal, Lore}} Category:1928 births Category:2024 deaths Category:20th-century American novelists Category:20th-century American short story writers Category:20th-century American translators Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:21st-century American Jews Category:21st-century American novelists Category:21st-century American short story writers Category:21st-century American translators Category:21st-century American women novelists Category:Alumni of Bedford College, London Category:American children's writers Category:American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Category:American women academics Category:American women children's writers Category:American women short story writers Category:Austrian emigrants to the United States Category:Bennington College faculty Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Deaths from congestive heart failure in New York (state) Category:Jewish American novelists Category:Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United Kingdom Category:Austrian emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:Kindertransport refugees Category:Novelists from New Jersey Category:Novelists from New York City Category:Novelists from Ohio Category:Novelists from Vermont Category:Ohio State University faculty Category:People from the Upper West Side Category:Princeton University faculty Category:Sarah Lawrence College faculty Category:The New Yorker people Category:Writers from Manhattan