Lore Segal
Personal Information
Description
Lore Groszman was born in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of a bank accountant. In 1938, when the Nazis came into power, her father was fired because of his ethnicity, and in 1939 her parents sent her to England to escape the Nazis. She lived in several foster homes and wrote the British government to convince them to allow her parents to join her in England. Her father was interned in a Scottish camp for and died shortly before the end of the war. Lore and her mother stayed in England. Lore received a degree in English Literature from Bedford College of the University of London. In 1951, Lore immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. She worked and wrote short stories, which were published in magazines. In 1961, she married David Segal in 1961, with whom she had two children. She began to write children's books, and in 1964, she published her first book, Other People's Houses, which was based on her experiences as a child refugee. In 1968 she began teaching writing at Columbia University School of the Arts. In 1970, her husband died. She continues to live in New York City and to write.
Books
All the way home
In 1941, circumstances bring together Brick, a boy from New York's apple country, and Mariel, a young girl made shy by her bout with polio, and the two make a journey from Brooklyn back to help Brick's elderly neighbors save their apple crop and to help Mariel learn about her past.
The juniper tree, and other tales from Grimm
Twenty-seven newly translated fairy tales from Grimm including many old favorites as well as such lesser-known tales as "The Juniper Tree," "Many-Fur," and "Brother Gaily."
The story of old Mrs. Brubeck and how she looked for trouble and where she found him
Rather than have trouble catch her by surprise, a perpetual worrier deliberately looks for it.
The story of King Saul and King David
The Bible story is illustrated with 40 reproductions from the Pamplona Bibles, two thirteenth-century illuminated manuscripts.
Half the kingdom
"A brilliant dark comedy about life, death and growing old in America told with Segal's characteristic humor, crystalline style and deadpan delivery--and her hilarious sense of the absurd. Half the Kingdom is a brilliant dark comedy about life, death and growing old in post-9/11 America--a place where terrorist paranoia and end-of-the-world hysteria masks deeper fears about mortality; a place where the broken medical system leads one character to quip, "Kafka wrote slice-of-life fiction." Characters from Segal's earlier novels are part of the cast whose lives intersect at Manhattan's Cedars of Lebanon emergency room--where doctors have noticed a marked up-tick in Alzheimer victims. People who seemed perfectly lucid just a day earlier exhibit signs of advanced dementia. Is it just normal aging or a coincidence? Is it an epidemic, or a secret terrorist plot? As profoundly moving as Joan Didion's latest non-fiction, and as thoughtful and charming as Diana Athill, Segal's crystalline writing and deep appreciation of the absurd make this most tragic and hilarious novel a joy for all to read"--
Tell Me a Mitzi
Three household adventures in the life of Mitzi include an intended trip to grandmother's, sharing a family cold, and reversing the President's motorcade.
Morris the artist
Morris buys a set of paints as a birthday present for Benjamin, but he wants to keep them for himself.
Journal I Did Not Keep
Segal has often used her own biography as both subject and inspiration: At age ten she was sent on the Kindertransport from Vienna to England to escape the Nazi invasion of Austria; grew up among English foster families; and eventually made her way to the United States. This experience was the impetus for her first novel, Other People's Houses , and one that she has revisited throughout her career.
Why Mole Shouted
Once there was a Mole who lived with his Grandmother Mole in a hole in the forest, and most of the time they got on well enough... But see what happens when Mole loses his glasses, doesn't zip his jacket, shouts, and keeps asking why. What is a Grandmother Mole to do except love him and kiss him on his nose? In four sweet and funny stories, Lore Segal and Sergio Ruzzier convey the tender bond between a grandmother and her grandson.
Tell me a Trudy
Three episodes with a little girl and her family: "Trudy and the Copycats," "Trudy and the Dump Truck," and "Trudy and Superman."
The book of Adam to Moses
A modern English version of the stories of the five books of Moses.