Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs

Summary

'If you're coming to Lurie for the first time, you must begin with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Foreign Affairs' Guardian

Vinnie Miner is an American professor of children's literature on her way to London for six months of research. Settling into her aeroplane seat she finds herself accosted by Chuck, a brash engineer wearing cowboy boots. She never imagines she'll see him again. But wet, windy London turns out to be the setting for fresh beginnings, and for Vinnie, a place to take up space, breathe the air, and to refuse to become a minor character in one's own life.

Foreign Affairs is a comic, heart-wrenching masterpiece of unexpected romance.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY AMANDA CRAIG

Reviews

  • I devoured the book at a sitting and then went back for a second dip at once
    Penelope Lively, Sunday Telegraph

About the author

Alison Lurie

Alison Lurie published ten novels, among them Foreign Affairs (which won the Pulitzer Prize), The Truth About Lorin Jones (winner of the Prix Femina étranger), and The Last Resort. She was also the author of many works of non-fiction, including The Language of Clothes, Don't Tell the Grownups, Familiar Spirits, and two collections of essays and reviews, Reading for Fun and Words and Worlds. She taught literature, folklore and creative writing at Cornell University for many years and was the Whiton Professor of American Literature emerita. She lived in upstate New York but also spent much time in Key West, Florida and in London, all of which provided settings for her fiction. She married the writer Edward Hower, and had three sons and three grandchildren. Alison Lurie died in 2020.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more