Erica Jong is the author of eight novels including
Fear of Flying; Fanny, Being the True History of the
Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones; Shylock's Daughter
(formerly titled
Serenissima);
Inventing
Memory, a story of mothers and daughters, and
Sapphoβs Leap. Several of her novels have been
worldwide bestsellers. Her other books include the
nonfiction works
Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir; The
Devil at Large, a study of Henry Miller;
Witches;
and
What Do Women Want, and six volumes of poetry.
Her latest book,
Seducing the Demon: Writing for My
Life, will be released by Tarcher/Penguin in March 2006.
Sapphoβs Leap is an odyssey about the greatest
female lyric poet of all time, set in the ancient world. The
book was published by W.W. Norton & Company in May 2003.
Two of Jong's other historical novels, Fanny and
Shylock's Daughter, were reissued in paperback by
Norton in 2003 with reading group guides. A musical
production of Fanny is currently in preparation.
Fear of Flying, which was first published in 1973,
will be re-issued this year in a trade-paperback edition. In
print in 27 languages, this modern classic has sold eight
million copies in the U.S. alone, with worldwide figures
reaching approximately 18 million.
In 1998, Erica Jong was honored with the United Nations
Award for Excellence in Literature. In addition, she has
received Poetry magazine's Bess Hokin Prize for her
poetry and the Deauville Award for Literary Excellence in
France. In Italy, she received the Sigmund Freud Award for
Literature in 1975. Her works have appeared all over the
world and are as popular in Eastern Europe, Japan, China,
and Asia as they have been in the United States and Western
Europe.
Erica Jong has taught literature and writing at The
University of Maryland's Overseas Division, The City
University of New York, The 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, The
Breadloaf Writers Conference in Middlebury, Vermont, The
Salzburg Seminar in Salzburg, Austria, Ben Gurion University
in Beersheva, Israel, and Bennington College.
A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University's
Graduate Faculties where she studied 18th Century English
Literature, Erica Jong also attended Columbia's graduate
writing program where she studied poetry with Stanley Kunitz
and Mark Strand. She has lectured and read her work all over
the world.
Erica Jong lives in New York City and Weston,
Connecticut.
© 2003-2026