Stacy Schiff

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff has said to set the "gold standard for all biographers." Her acclaimed works include Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), which won the Pulitzer Prize, Saint-Exupéry, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, winner of the George Washington Book Prize and other prestigious awards.

In her acclaimed, bestselling book, Cleopatra: A Life, Schiff brings to life one of the most intriguing women in history. Not only was Cleopatra the richest woman in the world, she was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though she died at 39, she lived an epic life. She waged a brutal civil war, dispensed with her enemies, and- in a male-dominated world- built an empire with intelligence and skill. She also spoke nine languages and was the single mother of four children.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Schiff "reanimates Cleopatra as a living, breathing woman: utterly extraordinary, to be sure, but recognizably human." Named to nearly all the best books of year lists, including the ten best for the New York Times and National Public Radio, Cleopatra opens a whole new dialogue about women, leadership and power.

Schiff has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a Director's Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She was awarded a 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Schiff has written for The New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times, where she has also been a guest columnist.