Fall 2010 Lecture Luncheon - Cleopatra: A Life with Stacy Schiff
Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare put words in her mouth. Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way the supple personality of the last queen of Egypt has been lost. Stacy Schiff, author of the forthcoming Cleopatra: A Life, separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. A former Fellow at the Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, Schiff is the author of Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry: A Biography, and A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, winner of the George Washington Book Prize. Join us as Ms. Schiff offers her insights on this iconic figure and the art of writing biography.