Allan Gurganus’s first novel, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, spent eight months on the New York Times bestseller list, has sold more than two-million copies and been translated into twelve languages, and was made into a CBS movie starring Diane Lane, Donald Sutherland, and Cecily Tyson. Born in Rocky Mount in 1947, Gurganus studied as a painter and served in the U.S. Navy before turning to writing. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, O’Henry Prize Stories, Best American Stories, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, and Best New Stories of the South. His other books include The Practical Heart, Plays Well With Others, and White People, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
MEDIA
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (Vintage, 2001):
Buy from your local bookstore through Bookshop.org
Watch Allan Gurganus talk about his life and work:
Watch Allan Gurganus’ acceptance speech at his 2010 North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inaguration:
(Both video clips courtesy of the North Carolina Arts Council.)
Watch Allan Gurganus read “Reassurance”:
(At the NYS Summer Writers Institute, Skidmore College, July 6, 2010. Courtesy of Salmugundi Magazine.)
Read Allan Gurganus’ Keynote Address “What Fiction Means” at the 1992 OutWrite, the free annual LGBTQ literary festival in Washington D.C.
(Courtesy of The Georgia Review).
Listen to Allan Gurganus deliver a laugh-out-loud lecture titled “A Still Small Voice Under the Cannonade: Field Notes towards Fiction’ Pact with History” :
“A Still Small Voice Under the Cannonade”
(Key West Literary Seminar, Key West, Florida, January, 2009. Courtesy of the Key West Literary Seminar.)
Watch Allan Gurganus talk about fellow Hall of Famer Reynolds Price:
(At the Perkins Library, Duke Univesity, Durham, NC, May 15, 2012. Courtesy of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.)
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