Ann Birstein Papers

Ann Birstein was born to immigrant Jewish parents in New York City on May 27, 1927. Her father, Bernard Birstein, was an orthodox rabbi who opened a small synagogue on West 47th Street in Manhattan to Broadway actors. The small synagogue was transformed into what became widely known as The Actors Temple, and included Milton Berle and Jack Benny among its members. Growing up with the influence of The Actors Temple, Birstein developed many personal contacts with notable Jewish celebrities such as Eddie Cantor and Sophie Tucker.

After graduating from high school, Birstein majored in English at Queens College, receiving a B.A., magna cum laude, in 1948. While in attendance at Queens College, Birstein was encouraged by one of her advisors to enter a literary competition sponsored by a publishing house. On the basis of a novel manuscript for which she had written one chapter per week, Birstein was awarded the Dodd Mead Intercollegiate Literary Fellowship. Included in this award was the publication of her first novel, Star of Glass, in 1950. After her graduation from Queens College, Birstein pursued graduate work at Kenyon School of English in 1950 and in Sorbonne, Paris from 1951 to 1952.

Following the release of her first novel, Birstein’s editor introduced her to New York writer and literary critic, Alfred Kazin, with whom she developed a romantic relationship. With this introduction, Birstein found herself thrust into the height of New York’s literary and intellectual circles with literary giants such as Saul Bellow and Ralph Ellison as their most intimate friends.

Birstein married Alfred Kazin in 1952. From the early 1950s through the 1970s, Birstein and Kazin took various residences in New York, New England, and California to pursue Kazin’s university appointments. During this time, Birstein was awarded MacDowell Colony Fellowships to work on her writing. Birstein divorced Kazin in 1982, and did not remarry.

Birstein taught creative writing and lectured at Barnard, City College, Columbia University, Hofstra University, SUNY at Albany, The Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, The New School, Queens College, and various schools and community centers in the United States and abroad. Birstein’s honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, Honorary Alumni Member Phi Beta Kappa, Fulbright Fellowship, and Queens College Scholar.

Birstein is the author of nine books, including seven works of fiction: Star of Glass (1950), The Troublemaker (1955), The Sweet Birds of Gorham (1966), Summer Situations (1972), Dickie’s List (1973), American Children (1980), The Rabbi on 47th Street (1982), The Last of the True Believers (1988) and What I Saw at the Fair (2003). Her short stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in the New Yorker, McCall's, the New York Times, Book World, Mademoiselle, and Vogue.