Erica Jong

At 82 years old, Erica Jong has this physical status:

Erica Jong (née Mann, 1942) is an American novelist, satirist, and poet best known for her 1973 book Fear of Flying.

The book was widely circulated for its views of female sexuality, and it played a key role in the emergence of second-wave feminism.

According to The Washington Post, it has sold more than 20 million copies around the world.

Early life and education

Jong was born on March 26, 1942. She is one of three children of Seymour Mann (died 2004) and Eda Mirsky (1911-2012). Her father, a businessman of Polish Jewish descent who owned a gifts and home accessories business known for its mass production of porcelain dolls. Her mother was born in England of a Russian Jewish immigrant family and was a painter and textile designer who also made dolls for her husband's business. Suzanna, a retired Lebanese businessman, and Claudia, a younger sister who married Gideon S. Oberweger (the chief executive officer of Seymour Mann Inc. before his death in 2006), are among Jong's older siblings. Peter Daou, a Democratic Party strategist, is one of her nephews. In the 1950s, Jong first attended The High School of Music & Art in New York, where she discovered her passion for art and writing. Jong, a Barnard Literary Magazine editor, edited the Barnard Literary Magazine and created poetry pages for the Columbia University campus radio station, WKCR.

Personal life

Jong has been married four times. After a brief marriage to Michael Werthman when at Barnard, and then to Allan Jong, a Chinese American psychiatrist, in 1977, she married Jonathan Fast, a novelist, social work researcher, and uncle of novelist Howard Fast. In How to Save Your Own Life and Kisses was a sample. Molly Jong-Fast has a daughter from her third marriage. Jong is now married to Kenneth David Burrows, a New York litigator.

Jong and her second husband worked on a military base in Heidelberg, Germany, for three years (1966–69). In her book Shylock's Daughter, she was a frequent visitor to Venice and wrote about the city.

Columbia University in New York City acquired her literary archive in 2007.

Jong appears in the Bob Dylan song "Highlands" on his album Time Out of Mind (1997) and satirized on MC Paul Barman's "N.O.W. "In a film in which the rapper fantasizes about a young leftist carrying a fictitious Jong book called America's Wrong."

Jong favors LGBT rights and recognition of same-sex marriage as well as the legalization of same-sex marriage. "Gay marriage is a blessing, not a curse," she says. It certainly supports stability and families. And it's certainly beneficial for children."

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Career

Jong, a 1963 graduate of Barnard College with a Masters (1965) in 18th century English Literature from Columbia University, is best known for her first book, Fear of Flying (1973), which caused a sensation in the open treatment of a woman's sexual desires. Despite having many sexual elements, the book is primarily the story of Isadora Wing, a woman in her late twenties who is looking for who she is and where she is going. It contains several psychological and humular descriptive terms, as well as numerous cultural and literary references. The book seeks to answer the many questions that women face in late 1960s and early 1970s America, including issues of womanhood, femininity, and passion, as well as one's search for identity and purpose. In two further books, How to Save Your Own Life (1977) and Paraphrasedoutput (1984), the story of Isadora Wing's thwarted fulfillment continues.

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Awards

• Poetry Magazine's Bess Hokin Prize (1971)
• Sigmund Freud Award For Literature (1975)
• United Nations Award For Excellence In Literature (1998)
• Deauville Award For Literary Excellence In France
• Fernanda Pivano Award For Literary In Italy