Dinitia Smith

Smith was born in Cumberland, Maryland, and raised primarily in Great Britain, where her father was a journalist. She came to the United States in 1959, and lived in New York City and Westchester. After graduating from Smith College,^[1] she worked as a reporter for the Associated Press in New York.^[2] She enrolled in the New York University Film School, and in 1971 obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree.

In 1971, she wrote and directed her first film, Passing Quietly Through, under her then-married name McCarthy.^[3] That film was one of the first films by a woman to be chosen for the New York Film Festival. Smith continued to make documentaries, including some with American documentary filmmaker, David Grubin,^[4] and also wrote several screenplays.^[5] Her films have been shown at the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.^[6]

In 1975, Smith won an Emmy Award for a film she made for WNBC–TV.^[7] She published her first novel, The Hard Rain, in 1980. Her second novel, Remember This, won her fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts^[8] and the Ingram Merrill Foundation.^[9] Her short fiction has been published in numerous literary journals.^[10][11]

Smith was also a contributing editor at New York magazine;^[12] from 1995 to 2006, she worked for The New York Times, where she wrote about arts and intellectual trends and ideas.^[13] Her third novel, The Illusionist, published in 1997, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.^[14]

The Honeymoon, her biographical novel about the 19th-century writer George Eliot, was published in 2016. The New York Times wrote that "Smith's enchanting account humanizes a figure renowned as much for her refutation of conventional female stereotypes and social limitations as for her genius for story and language".^[15] A reviewer for The Washington Post called the book "the perfect example of when fictional storytelling about an eminent person is warranted".^[16]

Smith's fifth novel, The Prince (Arcade Publishing, 2022), is a contemporary retelling of Henry James's The Golden Bowl. NPR called The Prince "a winner …a compelling story of sexual obsession and the expectations and tolerances of society.”^[17] Novelist Lee Child described The Prince as "Beautiful, elegant and delicate".^[18] The National Book Review called the novel "deliciously satisfying".^[19]

Smith has taught at Columbia University and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.^[20]

Smith has been married to historian and author David Nasaw since 1978. It is a second marriage for both.^[21] They have two sons.^[22][23]

• The Hard Rain, Dial Press (1980), ISBN 9780803734098
• Remember This, Henry Holt & Co (1989), ISBN 9780805010367
• The Illusionist, Scribner (1997), ISBN 9780684843292
• The Honeymoon, Other Press (2016), ISBN 9781590517789
• The Prince, Arcade Publishing (March 2022), ISBN 9781950994199