American author
Marianne Wiggins (born November 8, 1947) is an American author. According to The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, Wiggins writes with "a bold intelligence and an ear for hidden comedy."[1] She has won a Whiting Award, an National Endowment for the Arts award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize.[2] She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2004 for her novel Evidence of Things Unseen.[3]
Biography
Wiggins was born on November 8, 1947, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She married Brian Porzak in 1965, with whom she had one daughter. The couple divorced in 1970.[4]
Wiggins lived in London for 16 years, and for brief periods in Paris, Brussels, and Rome. In January 1988, she married novelist Salman Rushdie in London. On February 14, 1989, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a Fatwa ordering Rushdie's assassination for alleged blasphemy in his book, The Satanic Verses.[5] Although Wiggins had told Rushdie only five days prior that she wished to end their marriage, she nevertheless went into hiding along with him.[6] In 1993, the two divorced.[4]
In 2016 Wiggins suffered a stroke, leaving her unable to read or write. She regained those abilities and completed her novel Properties of Thirst over the course of several years. She was assisted by her daughter Lara Porzak.[7]
Wiggins currently lives in Los Angeles, California, where she has been in the English department of the University of Southern California since 2005.[8]
I have lived a really interesting life," she told Pamela J. Johnson in July 2006. "I haven't lived it so I can excavate material for my writing." She added, "I'm a novelist. I don't have those muscles. It's not about me. It's about what I've imagined. It's the universal voice that I want to move forward. That's my natural voice.[8]
— Marianne Wiggins, June 2006
