Lydia Davis is an American writer and translator. The recipient of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize and a MacArthur Grant, Davis is known for the marked brevity of some of her stories; her translations of Blanchot, Flaubert, and Proust, among others; and her distinctive writing style, which locates uncanniness in the everyday and upholds the slipperiness of language and memory.

Lydia Davis was born on July 15, 1947 in Northampton, Massachusetts to parents Hope Hale Davis and Robert Gorham Davis, who met at a workshop for radical writers. Both parents had careers as writers of fiction, with each publishing short stories in the New Yorker. Davis recalls growing up in a literary household:

My …

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Citation: Tanner, Julie. "Lydia Davis". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 June 2020 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14519, accessed 07 October 2024.]

14519 Lydia Davis 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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